A Shade of Difference (87 page)

“How true,” Terry said cordially. “How true!”

Downstairs at the Fourteenth Street entrance to the National Press Building the Majority Leader said good-by to Bob Leffingwell.

“Don’t you want to come up and watch, too? It might be interesting, to see old friends tangle with—old friends.”

“No, thanks,” Bob Leffingwell said. “I’m staying out of the mainstream for a while. I’ll come back next year, when we choose a President. And besides—what good does it do to add more unhappiness to unhappiness?”

“I’d like to agree and follow your example,” the Majority Leader said, “but my job doesn’t permit it. Good luck.”

“To you, too,” Bob Leffingwell said, and they shook hands with a warmth they had not shown to one another in many months.

Ahead of him as his chauffeur maneuvered the limousine right onto F Street, right again on Twelfth down to Pennsylvania, and then left along Pennsylvania to the Hill, he could see the Capitol looming white and serene against the evening sky.

The light that burns above the great dome when either house of Congress meets at night cast its beckoning signal to the beautiful city. The hour was half after seven and the night of the Hamilton Resolution was yet young.

7

In the chamber, there had occurred one of those breaks that come in a long debate when consensus is reached by many stomachs that it is time to be replenished. On the floor only a handful of Senators, all from the South, remained in respectful attendance upon Blair Sykes of Texas as he made his speech against the resolution. Downstairs in the Senators’ private dining room every table was full and the talk was vigorous and lively. What the state of animation of all these distinguished people would be at 3 or 4 a.m. might be another matter, but for the moment everyone seemed to be in fine shape—not least the Secretary of State, who, after pausing to greet many old friends and former colleagues along the way, had finally reached a table in the comer and settled in with the junior Senator from Iowa and the Congressman from California to consume a club steak, salad, and coffee.

“How’s it going?” he demanded, attacking the steak with energy and dispatch. “Seab given up yet?”

“I don’t think so,” Lafe Smith said. “He had a bite to eat a while back, and now he’s lying down in the Majority cloakroom taking a little nap. But he’s still on guard duty.”

“Hasn’t sued for peace to you, has he?” Orrin asked Cullee, and the Congressman smiled.

“No more offers. I expect our talk this afternoon finished that.”

“Yes.” The Secretary frowned. “Well, you understand Bob and I had to make the attempt. I’m sorry he misunderstood, but it probably wouldn’t have made any difference.”

“I don’t think so,” Cullee said. “If he did misunderstand,” he added with a sudden glance at the Secretary; but the Secretary let it pass. “Do you think he’ll really filibuster?”

“I wish not, but I’m afraid so. What do you hear around the floor?”

“I hear it’s still okay,” Lafe said.

“That was a good speech you made on the UN,” the Secretary told him. “I’ve just been in the official reporters’ room reading over the transcript of the debate so far. I think you said some necessary things.”

“Thanks. I get awfully fed up sometimes, up there, but—” He shrugged. “What else is there? Except the final disaster?”

“If only enough of its members can believe that,” Orrin Knox said, “maybe we can pull it through in spite of itself. And the world with it … How’s Hal?” he added abruptly. “Got any report yet?”

The junior Senator from Iowa gave a guilty little start, which was not lost upon the Secretary, but covered it calmly.

“What?” he asked with an innocence that did not fool Orrin.

“He’s in the hospital, isn’t he? I can’t reach him by phone.”

“What makes you think that?” Lafe asked cautiously. His old friend and colleague gave him a knowing glance.

“He isn’t here, and I can’t reach him there. What’s it all about?”

“He went in for a checkup, as I think you suggested. Or I did. Anyway, he’ll be out tomorrow, I expect, and back on the job.”

“You don’t sound so sure.”

“He’ll make it,” Lafe said, though he knew he was using “it” in the narrowest sense of the General Assembly debate. At least, he added to himself, I hope to God he’ll make it; he’ll die if he doesn’t. Then the incongruity of that struck him, and he looked down hastily at his dessert and took an earnest bite.

“Well—” the Secretary said doubtfully. “No monkey business now, damn it. I don’t care about the delegation, we can manage that, but I am seriously worried about his health. It would be just like him to do something quixotic.”

“He has a very idealistic desire to serve,” Lafe said. “Why don’t you let him?”

Orrin Knox studied him shrewdly for a moment.

“Is it as bad as that?”

“Why don’t you let him?” Lafe repeated, his expression yielding nothing.

“I’ll be there,” Cullee said. “I can help.”

“So you can,” Lafe said gratefully. “We’ll manage, Orrin. Stop fussing like an old hen. It isn’t as bad as you think.”

“It’s worse than I think,” Orrin said. His colleague shrugged.

“So you say. Leave it alone.”

“But—”

“Leave it alone, I said.”

“Well,” the Secretary said after a moment, “obviously I have no choice.”

“I expect we should go back up to the floor,” Cullee said. “I don’t want to rush you, but—”

“Right,” the Secretary said. “We don’t want to miss the President Pro Tem. Or the M’Bulu of Mbuele. Or the First Lady. Or the Secretary of State. Or any other of these famous people here tonight.”

And so, finally, the long night began in earnest. In the crowded chamber, with Family, Public, and Diplomatic Galleries filled to capacity and murmurous with interest, with the Press, Radio-TV, and Periodical Galleries jammed with watching newsmen and women alert and eager to send the word, and on the floor almost all Senators present and many standees from the House lined along the walls, George Carroll Townsend of Maryland completed a brief but heated condemnation of the Hamilton Resolution and sat down.

At once there was a commotion among the press. By leaning over the gallery rail and looking down, they could see that B. Gossett Cook of Virginia, in the Chair, had no other name on the list of speakers lying before him on the desk. For a moment he looked rather blankly at the Majority Leader, who in turn looked about quickly (as, above, the
New York
Post
urged, “Put it to a vote while the old fool is out of the room! Put it to a vote!”). Then, not finding the one he sought, Bob Munson rose to his feet and, after a hasty admonition to Stanley Danta, began to address the Chair. Senator Danta walked quickly up the aisle to the cloakroom, disappearing through its swinging glass doors as the whispering increased across the big brown room.

“Mr. President,” Senator Munson said slowly. “Am I to understand that no further Senators wish to speak on the pending resolution prior to the vote?”

“The Chair,” Gossett Cook said with a little smile, “perforce has to labor under that impression, he will say to the distinguished Majority Leader, in the absence of some indication to the contrary.”

“Then I am to understand,” Senator Munson repeated slowly, “that there is no one at all in this distinguished body who feels moved to—”

“Mr. President,” Fred Van Ackerman said loudly, jumping to his feet. “Mr. President, I have something to say. Mr. President! Mr. President!”

“The Senator will address the Chair in proper order,” Gossett Cook said with an asperity sudden and startling, for he was normally the most soft-spoken of men. “Does the Senator wish to ask the Majority Leader to yield? If so, let him ask.”

“Mr. President,” Senator Van Ackerman said with an elaborately insolent air, “will the distinguished Majority Leader yield to me?”

“For a question,” Senator Munson tossed over his shoulder, continuing to look at the Chair.

“Very well, for a question. How much longer is the Senate going to stall around waiting for a senile old—”

“Mr. President!” the Majority Leader said angrily.

“Waiting for the Senator from South Carolina,” Senator Van Ackerman amended smoothly as the galleries gasped. “I ask the Majority Leader if the final adjournment of this long and difficult session of Congress is going to be delayed just in order that Senator Cooley, who should be here right this minute if he wants to speak, may be sheltered and protected by the Majority Leader and this Senate?”

“The Senator from Wyoming,” Senator Munson said, “will never live to see the day when he has friends who care enough for him to shelter and protect him. That is his misfortune. The senior Senator from South Carolina has, and I make no apologies to the Senate for it. If anyone else is impatient because Senator Cooley has stepped off the floor momentarily and I am securing time for him to return so that he may speak his piece as fully and completely as he desires in this matter, let him join the Senator from Wyoming. I’ll wait.”

He turned and leaned against his desk, his back to the Chair, his eyes moving slowly, face by face, over the Senate. No one rose, no one moved. He turned back.

“Very well. Now, Mr. President—”

“Mr. President!” Fred Van Ackerman said. “If the Majority Leader is through with that old stunt, will he tell me why he feels it necessary to delay the work of this Senate? The Senator from South Carolina spoke earlier today. He’s had his say on this. We know where he stands.” An ugly rhythm came into his voice. “The Majority Leader isn’t in any
doubt,
is he? The Majority Leader isn’t
puzzled
about it, is he? The Majority Leader doesn’t expect any
surprises
from the Senator from South Carolina, does he?”

“Mr. President,” Bob Munson said, turning his back deliberately, “I shall not yield further to the Senator from Wyoming.”

“You can’t shut me up!” Fred Van Ackerman cried, his voice suddenly scaling upward in the snarling, unhealthy anger his colleagues knew only too well. “You can’t shut me up, I will say to the Majority Leader! You censured me, but you can’t take away my right as a United States Senator to say what I please! I will tell that to the Majority Leader; you can’t take away my right to speak—”

“No more, I will say to the distinguished Senator from Wyoming,” interrupted a familiar voice, and the Senate and galleries got a little release of tension as they turned and smiled to see the President Pro Tempore coming down the aisle, “and distinction, Mr. President, takes many forms—no more than he has a right to take away mine …

“Mr. President,” he said, moving to his desk as Bob Munson sat down, “my apologies to the Senate for delaying this moment, and my thanks to it for not going on and passing me by. Thanks also to the Majority Leader for sending the Senator from Connecticut to wake me up. I was taking a little snooze, Mr. President, I will say candidly to my colleagues. I recommend it. It refreshes one for the
tasks ahead.”

“Mr. President,” Senator Van Ackerman inquired, his quietness contrasting ominously with the laughter with which the Senate responded to Senator Cooley’s last remark, “will the Senator from South Carolina yield to me?”

“I will,” Seab Cooley said calmly, “if the Senator thinks he can contribute something.”

“How old is the Senator?” Fred Van Ackerman asked cruelly, and there was a little gasp around the galleries and on the floor. For a full minute Seab remained silent, and even as he did so, something of the comfortable atmosphere in the room began to drain away as men were reminded that he was, indeed, very old.

“My age is a matter of public record,” he said finally. “Assuming it has any bearing on the matter here.”

“How is the Senator feeling?” Fred Van Ackerman pursued, like the school bully tormenting his victim.

“Very well in my body,” Seab Cooley said slowly. “Even better in my mind. And in my heart, I will say to the Senator from Wyoming, better than he could ever feel, since to feel well there requires a decency he does not possess.”

“Oh, good for you!” the First Lady murmured in the Family Gallery above. Patsy Labaiya sniffed, “What an old HAM,” to Celestine Barre, who smiled in a noncommittal way.

“I won’t respond to that,” Fred Van Ackerman said coldly. “I will just ask the Senator if he thinks he will be feeling as well at four o’clock tomorrow morning as he feels right now?”

“I expect to,” Senator Cooley said calmly.

“The Senator expects to,” Fred Van Ackerman echoed with a broadly skeptical and completely humorless grimace. “I am sure we are all glad to hear it. I want the Senator to know that I intend to stay around and see it.”

“I can’t stop you,” Seab Cooley said.

“No, you can’t,” Fred Van Ackerman agreed, as a page boy came from a side door carrying six books and a stack of papers which he placed carefully on the desk of the President Pro Tem. “No, sir, that’s one thing you can’t do. Stop me.”

“Now, Mr. President,” Seab Cooley began opening the first book with an outward appearance of calm, though his heart had begun to beat quite painfully, “I should like to begin my more thorough discussion of this resolution about the Emboohoo by describing for you the situation as regards the relations between the races in my state of South Carolina in 1865, immediately following the conclusion of the War Between the States. Senators will remember—”

And he was off, but not before Senator Munson and Senator Danta had conferred worriedly with each other about the obvious intentions of the junior Senator from Wyoming; not before Beth Knox had murmured to Dolly Munson, “Oh, dear, I hope this is going to turn out all right”; not before the Secretary of State had said to Cullee Hamilton, “Now you see the sort of thing we’re up against over here; it isn’t so simple,” and Cullee had nodded gravely; and not before there began to come over the Press Gallery the conviction that its members might be about to witness and report on a most savage evening. Many of them had wished for years to see Seab Cooley brought low, but few indeed relished the prospect of watching the process. An uneasy, uncomfortable restlessness settled upon the chamber as the minutes went by and the filibuster began.