A Shade of Difference (85 page)

“Now, Mr. President,” he said, as Seab stirred uneasily and over on the Minority side Bessie Adams of Kansas started to rise and then thought better of it, “I repeat, I am not saying the United Nations is perfect; nor am I attempting to conceal its great and many defects. There are those in this country and elsewhere who attempt to do so, Mr. President, and in my judgment they are fools. Such willful self-delusion has no place in the cold gray world we live in today. But just as one can admit many defects in the democracy of the West and still end up believing it to be the only really decent and humanly hopeful system of government yet devised, so one can admit the many defects in the United Nations and still wind up thinking that the small spark of hope that flickers there is worth all the stupid and vicious misuse of its mechanisms that some of its members are guilty of.”

“Mr. President,” Senator Cooley inquired in a tired and skeptical tone, “is the Senator arguing that there is any guarantee that if we pass this resolution, the United Nations may not
still
pass its own resolution condemning us? Is he giving us assurance of that, pray tell?”

“Mr. President,” Lafe said, “no man here can give that assurance. There are certain safeguards. This is a matter of substance, an ‘important matter,’ as the term is used in the General Assembly; therefore, a two-thirds vote is necessary to pass it. The Ambassador of Panama, I will say to all interested parties”—and he grinned faintly at Patsy Labaiya, leaning forward in the Family Gallery above—“does not have the two-thirds vote, at least at present counting. Nor is he even close to it. Therefore, there is that safeguard. But, Mr. President, even more importantly, there is the safeguard that if we act in good faith, surely it will be understood and accepted as such by the peoples of the world. Surely our purposes and our intentions will be honored, Mr. President. Surely our integrity will be recognized.”

“The Senator has found this to be consistently the case in the United Nations, has he?” Seab asked. “Our good faith and integrity are always accepted and honored, are they? That is the Senator’s argument, is it? Mr. President,” he said with a wintry smile, “the Senator knows things we do not know.”

“Now, Mr. President,” Lafe said, and a certain asperity came into his voice, “the distinguished Senator from South Carolina persists in trying to turn this into a trial of the United Nations. It is not. It is a trial of us. I see over there on a sofa in the corner the distinguished author of this resolution pending before the Senate, my fellow member on our delegation to the United Nations, the able Congressman from California. I know he agrees with me, as do many other members of both houses of Congress who have served on the American delegation in the past, that in the area of world opinion, as it is represented and focused by the UN, there is indeed an unceasing war to gain and hold advantage. I will grant, and so will the author of the resolution, I am sure”—and he looked at Cullee, who nodded from where he sat even before he heard Lafe’s thought—“that world opinion is a flimsy and fickle and often fantastically irresponsible thing. With some of the newer states in the organization, it bears no resemblance whatever to fairness or objectivity or honor. But that does not make it any less important, Mr. President. We are in the world, and we must listen to it and take it into account.

“Do we, as the Senator from South Carolina and to some degree, I gather, the Majority Leader, propose, go our own way and let world opinion like it or lump it, lucky if it likes it and possibly unlucky if it lumps it? Or do we combine doing what we think is right with what, in our terms of reference, we regard as ‘a decent respect for the opinions of mankind’?

“I think we should do the latter, Mr. President, for this has been our historical pattern from our beginning. I think that I can speak for the distinguished author of his resolution”—and again Cullee nodded—“that he thinks so, too. I know I can speak for the head of our delegation, our beloved friend from West Virginia”—and only the slightest change came over his voice, noticed and dismissed after a second’s puzzlement by only a few—“who is in New York right now, preparing to carry the battle in the General Assembly after we have joined the House in passing the Hamilton Resolution.” He paused and stared earnestly at his colleagues.

“It is the right thing for us to do, Mr. President. It is as simple as that. Let us do it.”

There was a burst of applause from the galleries as he sat down, and Verne Cramer in the Chair rapped sternly for order.

“Visitors are here as guests of the Senate,” he said crisply. “No demonstrations are permitted. One more, and the galleries will be cleared. The junior Senator from South Carolina.”

“Mr. President,” H. Harper Graham said with his dark-visaged scowl and somber air, “I invite the Senate to consider the actions of a worthless adventurer from Africa in my native city of Charleston as they apply to the traditional and historical relationship of the races in the southern states of this Union. Mr. President, I shall begin by—”

“Let’s go have a cigarette,” the
Cincinnati
Enquirer
said as there was a general rising and stirring in the Press Gallery. “He’s good for at least three hours.” And, leaving a corporal’s guard of two lonely wire-service men and the Charleston, South Carolina,
News and Courier,
they all trooped up the stairs and out to the gallery rooms beyond, where they would talk and gossip and pass the time of day until such time as Harper Graham should be through.

So passed the time until six o’clock, as Harper Graham finished and yielded the floor to Arly Richardson; as Arly Richardson concluded, after sharp and sarcastic set-tos with Ray Smith of California and Irving Steinman of New York; as Rhett Jackson and Douglas Brady Bliss of North Carolina engaged in a lengthy duet on the status of the Negro in their state; and as Lacey Pollard of Texas in his stately way went back through the legal precedents to show that there was no reason, really, why the Senate should be bound in any way by the opinions or actions of the United Nations. During all this time, the President Pro Tempore sat slumped and inactive at his desk, puzzling and eventually alarming the Majority Leader, who finally broke the ostentatious silence that had prevailed between them since the end of Seab’s speech by jogging his colleague’s elbow and demanding, “Are you all right? This isn’t tiring you too much, is it?”

“Do you care?” Senator Cooley inquired in a distant voice that concerned Bob Munson even more. “Do you really care, now, Bob? Wouldn’t it be better if I just dropped dead and then you could go ahead and pass that nice colored boy’s resolution? Wouldn’t that solve the problem for everybody?”

“Now, Seab,” Senator Munson said with a rather nervous jocularity, “you’re not going to drop dead until the rest of us are long underground, so stop saying things like that. I’m just worried about you. You seem so subdued and tired.”

“I’m an old man, Bob,” Senator Cooley said, and the Majority Leader realized with a sudden poignance that this was the first time he had ever heard Seab admit it. “I’m not as spry as I used to be. It isn’t as easy as it once was to restrain my colleagues from taking a misguided action.”

“You could have avoided it,” Bob Munson started to point out, “if only you’d reached an agreement with Cullee—”

“You betrayed me on that, Bob,” Senator Cooley said with a tired unhappiness that was more disturbing than any amount of his customary flamboyant anger would have been. “I trusted you, you and Orrin, and you betrayed me. I didn’t like that, Bob. But it doesn’t matter.”

“Misunderstandings happen, Seab,” Senator Munson said. “Maybe both Orrin and I were so hopeful we were getting you two to agree that we heard things in what you both said that weren’t there. I’m sorry, and I know he is too. But don’t you think you’ve said enough on this? You’ve made a good speech on the subject; now why don’t you just let it stand at that? Your colleagues are doing a good job of making a record, and so have you. That’s all you need back home, isn’t it? Why not let it go?”

“When did I ever let anything go, Bob?” Senator Cooley asked wryly. “That’s my trouble, isn’t it? The Lord didn’t make me to let things go. He made me to keep fighting. Especially against things I feel are wrong, Bob. And I do feel this resolution is wrong. You can argue it any way you like, Bob; I still feel it’s wrong.”

“What do you plan to do, then? Filibuster, later on?”

“I won’t be alone, Bob, you can bet on that. I won’t be alone.”

“Seab,” Bob Munson said gently, “I think you will be, and so do you. I’ve checked around, and aside from a few more brief speeches for the record, nobody wants to do anything more. Everybody wants to wind this thing up and adjourn the session, you know that. The resolution isn’t important enough to warrant the kind of fight you want to make.”

“Isn’t important enough!” Senator Cooley said with a trace of his old doggedness. “I really think it’s wrong to humble ourselves, Bob, leaving aside all else. I really do. Can’t you understand that?”

“I understand it, but, Seab—you’re not as young as you were. You really are old. I don’t think you should filibuster tonight. I’m genuinely worried about it.”

“I don’t control the situation. You do, Bob. You aren’t about to send the resolution back to committee, are you?”

“I can’t drop it now, Seab,” Bob Munson said. His colleague slumped back in his chair.

“No more can I, Bob,” he said softly. “No more, then, can I.”

There was an unhappy pause, during which, across the now half-empty chamber, Fred Van Ackerman engaged in a short and nasty exchange with Lacey Pollard. Finally the Majority Leader sighed.

“I’m sorry, Seab. I really am.”

“Don’t be,” Senator Cooley said. “I expect I’ll last, Bob. I expect I will.”

But as he settled back into his seat, looking curiously alone, a sudden premonition shot through the Majority Leader’s mind that he might not; and it was with a disturbed and uneasy feeling that he turned his seat over to Stanley Danta a few minutes later and prepared to go on downtown to the National Press Club to put in an appearance at the cocktail party being given by the
Washington Post
for Mr. Justice Davis and the M’Bulu of Mbuele. He regarded the affair with considerable skepticism, but he expected he should be there just to see who else was and what they had to say to one another, a motivation that impels attendance at many a Washington cocktail party and one that draws some of the most startling conglomerations together to exchange their thoughts upon the topics of the day.

He was not at all pleased to run into Fred Van Ackerman on the Senate steps and have him ask, quite unabashed, for a ride down in the Majority Leader’s official limousine. Fred was going to the party, too, it seemed, and after it was over he was going to come back and needle that old bastard Seab a little. Yes, sir, the junior Senator from Wyoming said with relish, he was going to make the old bastard sweat. Bob Munson told him that in that case he might have to help Seab filibuster, and said it with such conviction that his companion almost believed it. He could hear the wheels grinding around in that savage little mind all the way downtown and said nothing to disturb their whirring until they arrived at the door of the Press Club’s noisily clamorous East Lounge, where Fred said tersely, “See you later!” “Assuredly,” said Bob Munson coldly.

There was vengeance in the air, he realized, thinking back to Brigham Anderson’s death and the censure motion against Fred, and somehow he must protect Seab against it. He was not so sure, as the roar of the room engulfed him, that he could.

“But, my dear fellow,” Justice Davis was saying, over by the canapés, where a large and admiring group surrounded him and the towering M’Bulu, “what an extraordinary sequence of events brought you to power. And how nobly you have handled the responsibility. How nobly!”

“I have done my best,” Terrible Terry said modestly. “Against,” he added with a trace of annoyance, “what seemed at times considerable odds.”

“I know,” Tommy Davis said quickly. “Oh, I
know.
But you have surmounted every test so well. No one has been able to stop you. Not your enemies in your native land, not the British, not our own more—more
dismal,
shall we say”—there was an appreciative titter from all around—“fellow citizens. It has been a clear and shinning record of which all men of goodwill everywhere should be, and
are,
proud!”

“Hear, hear!” said the Ambassador of Cuba, and the Ambassador of Guiana said, “Oh, yes!”

“You are too kind,” the M’Bulu said. “I may say that it is men like yourself in the Western world who prove to us, who fight for freedom in Africa that there is hope for understanding and appreciation of what we are trying to do.”

“What
are
you trying to do, Your Highness?” the counselor of the Australian Embassy inquired, but Terry gave him a startled and elaborately unyielding stare and continued unperturbed, as others drew slightly away from the counselor.

“I assure you, Mr. Justice, that we Africans deeply appreciate what you and others like you are doing here in this country to bring greater decency to the world. We only wish all whose skins are as dark as ours would work as vigorously as you, whose skin is not.”

“I say, hear,
hear,”
said the Ambassador of Ghana. “It
is
sticky,” agreed the cultural attaché of the Embassy of Sierra Leone.

“You mean you disapprove of our distinguished Congressman and his resolution?” their host, the editorial director of the
Washington
Post,
inquired with a chuckle as he approached the group in the company of Senator Van Ackerman. “Terry, how could you!”

“I could,” the M’Bulu said, as they all laughed. “Oh, yes, I could. I do not think His Distinguished Distinction is a real friend to his own race. But he will not listen. Both his old friend, LeGage Shelby, and I tried to persuade him not to play the game our foes wish him to play. He has gone straightaway ahead.”

“Perhaps Seab Cooley will stop him in the Senate,” their host suggested. There was a snort from Senator Van Ackerman.