Captains and The Kings (48 page)

soiled and untidy, whose head was bent like the head of a dying bull stopped in his charge. She could not recognize her husband in this lean stiff man with the vindictive smile, the narrowed eyes, the contracted muscles held as if about to strike. She put her hand to her mouth, an unusually feeble gesture for Bernadette. "I will do nothing to help you," said Joseph in the softest voice. "Not even if your life depended on it." Tom Hennessey pondered on that. He looked about him vaguely, and now Bernadette could see his inflamed and bloody eyes which did not see her at all. Tom put his hand to his head. He licked his lips. "What did you say?" he muttered. "Nothing to help you. Not to save your life, Tom." Tom put his hands to his throat and moved his big head. He gasped. He did not look away from Joseph. There was now a deep crimson flush on his forehead, a rising of thickened veins in his neck. "Why?" he asked. "Katherine," said Joseph. "Katherine," Tom repeated, in a dull low tone. "Katherine. What had she to do with you?" "Nothing. It was what you did to Katherine." Tom's gaze fixed itself with renewed intensity on Joseph. The crimson flush was deepening. He slowly raised his right hand and pointed at Joseph. "Now I remember," he said, and his voice was very choked. "You were a lad. You-you had been looking at this house. I knew I'd remember sometime. A dirty shanty Irisher. That's all you were, all you are. You wanted this house. Shanty Irish. A beggar. You plotted it all. From the beginning. You-took my daughter. It was all part of it. All part of it,. Dirty shanty Irish." He stopped and groaned and panted. He said, "Katherine. Yes, I remember. You were always- It was Katherine. You waited a long time, Irish." "I waited a long time," said Joseph. "But Katherine never knew. On the night she died she asked me to marry your daughter. It was her wish. And so I did." Tom saw his face and for the first time in his life he shuddered before another man. He lifted his arms and clenched his fists. He staggered towards Joseph beating his hands impotently, blindly, in the air. He fell forward, stumbling, reeling. Bernadette uttered a thin shriek. Tom fell upon Joseph, still flailing. Then, instinctively, for he felt the older man sagging and collapsing, Joseph caught him in his arms, staggered himself a moment, then held Tom Hennessey, fallen against his chest, arms hanging. It was then that Joseph saw Bernadette. He did not care what she had heard or what she had seen. He said to her, "Help me to put your father in a chair." But Tom was unconscious now. He slipped out of the chair in which they put him, Bernadette all the while crying and half-screaming and slapping her gloved hands together in distraction. Tom lay on the floor between them with a suffused face, breathing stertorously, his eyes half open. "You killed my father!" Bernadette shrieked. "What did you do to my father?" "Ring for someone," said Joseph. "Send for a doctor, and some of the grooms and we'll put your father to bed." His voice was cold and neutral. Bernadette stopped her crying. She stared at her husband, blinking, big tears on her smooth golden cheeks. "I heard," she said. "You never cared anything about me, did you?" "No," said Joseph, though he again felt a dim pity for her, "I never did. But there is nothing we can do about it now, is there?" The doctor, and other doctors summoned from Philadelphia and even Pittsburgh, said that the governor had had a stroke, that his whole left side was paralyzed, that he would probably never speak again nor leave his bed. It was possible that he would not be fully aware or conscious of his surroundings from this time on, and must have constant nursing.
He I could not be moved. His life depended on it. Bernadette, pale and quiet, said, "This is my father's house. He will stay in it £s long as he lives, and I will never leave him. Send for his wife- and her child." { So Tom Hennessey had returned to his house and would remain there until he died. Joseph found a profound irony in this. He could even laugh quietly to himself at the irony. He was all courtesy to the grief-stricken Elizabeth, whom Bernadette hated. Elizabeth's little boy, Courtney, joined Rory and Ann Marie in the nursery. ; Bernadette wanted to say to Elizabeth, to wound her, "My husband : killed your husband," but her helpless and now devastated love for Joseph I prevented her. No matter what Joseph did, to her, to anyone else, her besottedness was not shaken though she now feared him. Her mother: Had Joseph really loved her mother? Yes, it was so. She, Bernadette, must § live with that all her life. Joseph's newspaper in Philadelphia expressed its sorrow for "the stricken governor," and prayed for his recovery. When Tom Hennessey died two years later-after an existence which had held no awareness of love or hatred or money or influence or power or even living-he was eulogized in the press as "the greatest and most humane Governor this Commonwealth has ever known. The defender of the weak, the upholder of the workingman, the staunch fighter for the Right, for Progress, the hater of corruption and exploitation, the patriot, the farsighted politician who had Dreams of a nobler America-this was Governor Thomas Hennessey, who was stricken down at the height of his struggle for the Nation. We grieve with his family. We pray for his soul." Tom was buried beside his wife, who had loved him.
Chapter 31
While in New York Joseph's friends said to him during a discreet meeting: "It would be impolitic for any of us, except you, Mr. Armagh, to approach Senator Enfield Bassett personally. The cartoonists are too favorable to him and he has only to lift a finger for them to lampoon anyone who tries-er-to talk reasonably to him. He did it with the more obstreperous of the Greenbackers, though they had to be careful there, considering that both the conservative Democrats and the more moderate Republicans opposed them." "I remember," said Joseph. "The radical Republicans joined with the Greenbackers, but we soon eliminated them from politics." "We didn't," said a gentleman from Austria-Hungary, smiling. "We were entirely against the gold standard for America, and helped your innocent President Lincoln to issue greenbacks to pay for his war, though there was no solid currency behind them. We had our hopes, then, that your government would continue to issue flat money instead of gold currency-for that is the sure way to-reorganize-a country." "Make it available for loot," said Joseph, who was not always deferential to his colleagues. "Money by government flat, not backed by gold and silver, inevitably bankrupts a country, doesn't it? But I thought you gentlemen were in accord that America was not yet ripe for total looting and for the introduction of Marxist Socialistic principles." He smiled at them with what they had long ago called his "tiger smile." "I am afraid," he said, "that you will have to wait a considerable time before America goes off the gold standard again, becomes Socialistic, and therefore ripe not only for looting but for conquest if not by arms then by bankers. Yes -a considerable time before America becomes the slave of the Elite. Perhaps, however, your sons-" "We have no time limits," said another gentleman. "We are patient." Another gentleman said, "Republics never survive, for their people do not like freedom but prefer to be led and guided and flattered and seduced into slavery by a benevolent, or not so benevolent, despot. They want to worship Caesar. So, American republicanism will inevitably die and become a democracy, and then decline, as Aristotle said, into a despotism. We can only work quietly and diligently for that day, for it is our nature," and he laughed a little. "No sensible man can endure to see fools voting in a free election, and deciding a nation's destiny for themselves. It goes against reason and right government. It is the highest and most distorted absurdity." "Still," said Joseph, "the people became militant against President Grant who was considering a third term, and called him 'Caesar.'" "We have said," said a gentleman from Russia, "that America is not ripe at this time either for democracy and her child, despotism. But the time will come. We will succeed in persuading your government to go off the gold standard and issue greenbacks by flat One way is through wars, but we have other methods, as you know, Mr. Armagh. Revolution, for instance, persuading the people that they are oppressed, and inciting incendiarism." "Catilina did that," said Joseph. "It seems to me that he was slaughtered." "He was before his time," said a gentleman from England. "Forty years later he would have succeeded. Now, in your country, we have only to turn your conservative Democrats into radicals, a hard task, but we may succeed. In defense, your radical Republican Party will have to become more conservative. This will confuse the people. But we have spoken many times of this before.
The problem of Senator Bassett now confronts us." Joseph thought of the time, only four years ago, when the strikers against the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in Maryland had desperately rebelled against a reduction in their miserable pay of ten percent. On July 20, 1877, the governor had called out the 6th Maryland Militia, who marched to the railroad station, fired on the strikers and their wives and children and killed twelve people. But the strike had spread to Pittsburgh, where the Pennsylvania Railroad had also cut wages. Governor Hennessey had ordered out the militia and there fifty-eight strikers, and soldiers, had died in furious pitched battles, and millions of dollars' worth of railroad property had been destroyed. But the Great Strike, born of the terrible depression of 1877, and nourished by starvation and wretchedly small wages, spread all over the country. President Rutherford Hayes had finally halted it, but not until the railroad barons had been forced to concede a little and had reduced a working day from fourteen hours to twelve and had made it possible for the workers to afford enough bread for their children, and meat once or twice a month. Joseph remembered that a large number of the strikers had been Irishmen, the Molly Maguires, fresh from the "ould sod," who had found the railroaders little different from their English landlords. However, they had been seduced by the slogan that in America there was no difference between races and religions, and that a man could practice his faith in peace. Perhaps their disillusion had fired their desperate rioting and not only the incredibly low wages. Joseph smiled grimly, and his colleagues, who thought him a capricious man and not entirely "solid," saw that smile though they were unaware of the reason. Joseph thought: There are other ways of revenge than rioting and striking. He said, "Our new President, Mr. James Garfield, has said that he will institute new reforms in this country." The others exchanged discreet glances. Mr. Jay Regan, the New York financier, said gently, "I am sure he can be dissuaded by intelligent and reasonable argument." "Or, if not, he can be assassinated," said Joseph, and laughed his disagreeable laugh. "Like Mr. Lincoln." He saw their coldly affronted faces, and laughed again. "Gentlemen," he said, "I am not against judicious murder, as you know. But we were speaking of Senator Bassett. He is a Republican, but not a radical like our Reconstruction fanatics and our shouting congressmen and senators, therefore the conservative Democrats also voted with him in considerable numbers. The President likes him, and consults him. They may be hatching schemes deleterious to us. That is what you fear, isn't it?" "True," said Mr. Regan, and shifted his heavy belly in his chair and lit a cigar.
"Gentlemen," he said to the others, "Mr. Armagh and I are Americans, and so we are blunt and prefer to nail a subject down and not dance a minuet or a waltz about it." "Your politics," said a German, "are your own, at this point, Mr. Regan. But we do know that Senator Bassett is leading the coalition against foreign contract labor, and trying to force through an Alien Contract Labor bill, which will prohibit the importation of cheap labor from Europe to work in your mills and mines and factories. The senator is listening too much to the criminal unions in America, and to sobbing sympathizers, and to 'reformers.' And other senators, and congressmen, too, are listening to Senator Bassett and his mobs. We all know that if alien labor is halted American labor will become arrogant and overweening and demand impossible wages and conditions, and that will be the end of American progress and wealth. You will not be able to compete in foreign markets. Our own profits will be fearfully diminished. Besides"-and he looked at the Americans-"does not America need more and more immigrants? Think of your vast Territories to the West, lacking cities and factories and industry. Must they be deprived of people, of growth?" "You touch my heart," said Joseph. This was the sort of remark, uttered with quiet irony, that disturbed his colleagues, even Mr. Regan, who had a great affection for him. "It has been the experience of America," said Joseph, "that alien labor does not move West in any quantity, but huddles in the warrens of the Eastern cities. Which, of course, is our plan in any event. If they moved West to open the Territories, who would work in our mills, mines, and factories? Gentlemen, let us be rough and honest, and not use sanctimonious words. We want alien labor because it is very cheap, and because American labor is demanding the right to live, too. That is intolerable to us. Let us proceed from that honest premise." He saw secret cold eyes, calculating, but he knew he was safe from them. His knowledge made him invulnerable. Besides, Mr. Regan, the Morgans, the Fisks, the Belmonts, the Vanderbilts, the Goulds, might all be American villains but they had an American sense of humor also, and not an overpowering affection for their European colleagues. They would plot with them, but they would always have some peculiar sardonic reservation. They would plan to destroy American freedom and establish themselves as the Elite-as the others planned for their own countries-but they would do it with urbanity and self-mocking hypocrisy. It would all be the same in the end, but the means were gayer and not icily cynical and bloodless. The words of Mr. Vanderbilt, "The hell with the public," would prevail, but the public would well know the sentiments of their coming rulers, and their present ones, and might even smile at their raucous effrontery. It was the deadly men, who spoke in low tones of "human rights" and "compassionate considerations"-while they methodically looted, and endlessly plotted against human freedom and human dignity- who were execrable. But, thought Joseph, would a nation prefer a jovial executioner to a solemn one? He thought it very likely that America would. His experience with politicians had so convinced him. Well, America chose her own politicians, not on the basis of worth and honor and manliness and probity, but on their smiles, their public good-nature, their appearance, the people's own emotionalism, their own excited delusions. Joseph thought of his son, Rory, handsome, enchanting, humorous, gay, and witty-a born equivocator and, of course, a politician. "Always lie, always be charming," Joseph had told his son. "Americans adore delightful pitchmen." Rory was not quite nine, but he was extremely intelligent, an attribute Joseph was later to tell him not to display before the American electorate. "Americans suspect too much intellect," he would say. "They prefer a glittering clown. You must learn to kiss babies and have a throb in your throat, and if you can have tears in your eyes and a smile on your lips simultaneously the public will go mad over you." "If Senator Bassett succeeds in getting the Alien Contract Labor bill passed," said Mr. Regan, "it will be the end of American expansion, and the end of profits. Labor, if in short supply, can enforce impossible demands. It is as simple as that. So, Senator Bassett must be-persuaded. Other senators hold him in the highest regard." "So Senator Bassett must lose that regard," said Joseph. "What skeleton does he have in his closet?" "None that we can find, and we have sought," said Mr. Regan. "He has led a life of the utmost virtue." The others smiled bleakly. "He has never taken graft. He has never had a mistress. When he was congressman he refused the spoils. He is not a rich man. He owns farms and pays his workers high wages, incredible wages. His wife is a Southern lady-" "That ought to be enough to swing the radical Republicans away from him," said Joseph. (That was another sort of remark of which his colleagues disapproved.) "Can't we bring it up that due to his wife the senator never helped loot the South the way the Reconstruction boys did?" Mr. Regan coughed a little, but his eyes, ambushed under his thick brown brows, twinkled. "Unfortunately, the conservative Democrats and the conservative Republicans have noted that fact with approval." Joseph said with politeness, "Has anyone considered murdering him?" Mr. Regan laughed. "That would only inflame those who are with him, Joseph. Well, it seems in your pocket, my boy. We have decided that you, who have never been conspicuous, should try to persuade the senator. You have shown more discretion than others of us." "I gather," said Joseph, "that Senator Bassett is well informed about the labor situation in America.