Capable of Honor (49 page)

Chapter 2

Somewhere a band was playing—a band is always playing, that Great Eternal Band of American politics that is always on hand every time, everywhere, its happily excited tootlings and thumpings forming the backdrop for arrivals, departures, rallies, parades, speeches, picnics, hand-shakings, barbecues, baby-kissings—and the July sun shone bright and sparkling on lovely San Francisco as the delegates arrived.

Some—the chairman of the National Committee, the vice chairman, principal sergeants-at-arms, head doorkeepers, the chairman of arrangements, the publicity director, officials of the press and communications galleries of the Senate and House, staffs of the Jason Headquarters, the Knox Headquarters, the Hudson Headquarters, members of the Credentials, Housing, and Platform Committees, parliamentarians, secretaries, stenographers, hundreds of eager college kids who swarmed the corridors and now and then managed to be helpful—these had arrived a week or ten days ago, together with many working reporters and a large number of detached and analytical observers from Walter’s world. As a result of their preliminary hustling and bustling much drama had already emerged—JASON WINS FIRST ROUND IN CREDENTIALS COMMITTEE, for instance; SERGEANT-AT-ARMS RULING UPHELD.…KNOX FORCES FIGHTING HARD TO RETAIN PLATFORM PLANK.… REPORT MICHIGAN DELEGATION SPLIT. A steadily rising tension gripped the magical city and the nation, fascinated and frequently dumfounded, which watched its portentous story unfold.

But today was the day of the delegates, and all that had gone before was only preliminary to their shouting, whooping, lighthearted arrival. Old hands stood about the lobbies of the St. Francis, the Palace, the Mark Hopkins, the Fairmont, the Hilton, making disparaging remarks about the naïveté and exuberance of the newcomers, but on this day nothing could detract from their carefree enthusiasm. “They think it’s real,” the
New York Times
remarked to the
Deseret News at the Mark
, as they watched a noisy troop of delegates from Pennsylvania swarming in to pay their respects at Jason Headquarters on the third floor; but for the delegates it was real. “They think what they think is important here,” CBS commented in the same mood to The Greatest Publication That Absolutely Ever Was as they stood in the lobby of the St. Francis and watched a similar group, from Ohio, storming up to Knox Headquarters on the mezzanine; but it would be a while yet before the delegates realized the acrid wisdom of the comment.

Right now the convention was young and it was happy, and in some strange, mysterious way that no one has ever entirely defined, it would work, as it usually has, to send into the field two reasonably good men, perhaps no better, perhaps no worse, than most of their countrymen—two men to carry the hopes of millions—two men to reaffirm what America is all about—two men to become Symbols instead of eating, sleeping, lusting, sweating, stinking, defecating men—two men to bear witness to a great experiment’s long, continuing life.

The convention might not work the way a majority of the delegates thought it was going to—but it would work. They might not have quite the influence on its deliberations that some of them thought they would—but it would work. Their votes might not be quite as free and independent as some of them believed right now—out of their tumultuous, swirling, agglutinous mass on the convention floor there might not come quite the solemn, profound, and dedicated judgments that some of them fondly fancied—but it would work.

Conventions don’t get together to fail. They get together to pick candidates. And somehow, in some way, at some point in three or four frantic days and nights—but best not ask too closely exactly how, for sometimes it is a little far from the textbooks that children read in school—they work.

This, however, was a knowledge that would come later, and in some cases with some lasting bitterness, to the happy souls who were arriving literally every minute from air terminals, train stations, by car, by chartered bus, and even—in the case of a well-publicized rebel section of the Illinois delegation which was going to go for Jason instead of Knox—by hovercraft across the Bay and thence by helicopter to Union Square in front of the St. Francis. This was their day, and it was possible as one watched, no matter how old a hand, no matter how sophisticated, how experienced, how skeptical and cynical and know-it-all, to yet feel a thrill along with them, to believe for just a moment that it was all real, that everything was as bright and shining and free and glorious as America was in her days of beginning, and as she sometimes still is in the hearts of her people.

For here came good old Joe Smitters from Ashtabula, chairman of the county central committee for nigh these twenty years, and Mrs. Joe Smitters—Belle—head of the Ladies’ Auxiliary. And right after them came Bill Smatters from Atlanta, biggest contributor in town to the last campaign, and Mary-Clare, daughter of the late Senator Rivage, smartest old Sentuh theh evuh was. And right after them. Bob Smutters and Lulie, from Punxsutawney, Pa., and John Smotters and Susie from Phoenix, and—h’aar
y’all?
—ding, dang, if it wasn’t Buddy and Vangie Smetters from Little Rock, and how have you-all
beein?

And the Governors and the Senators and the Congressmen, and the state senators and the assemblymen, and the Cabinet officials and the state officials and the society gals preparing their big shebangs and the members of the diplomatic corps ready to observe—ready to observe, on an average, fifty martinis, thirty gin and tonics, fifteen bourbon highballs, two bottles of rosé, four of burgundy, and three of sauterne—at innumerable cocktail parties, receptions, private dinners, and public banquets before the week was over.

And Walter Dobius and Helen-Anne and all their friends and colleagues of the communications media, the teams, the groups, the lone wolves, the sages, and the working-stiffs, prepared to fill endless reams of newsprint and endless hours of newstime with an awful, abysmal, appalling expanse of absolutely nothing—and on four or five vital occasions, at four or five electrically decisive moments, with something really important and really exciting.

And Ted and Ceil Jason, arriving at the Mark, to face a wild surge of reporters, cameramen, and shouting delegates, speaking a few hastily innocuous words into the insistent microphones, being whisked by their campaign staff into a crowded elevator and rushed to their suite on the twenty-third floor—there to have the last half-hour of quiet they would know for five days—before leaving to attend an 11 A.M. reception given by the Massachusetts delegation at the Palace.

And Orrin and Beth Knox, arriving at the St. Francis to be greeted by a similar wildly excited crowd, speaking a few hastily innocuous words into the insistent microphones, being whisked by their campaign aides into a crowded elevator and rushed to their suite on the eighteenth floor, there to have an excited reunion with a Hal looking older and more settled and more—“husbandly,” as Beth put it—and a Crystal radiant and glowing with her pregnancy—before being hurried away to the Fairmont for a reception given by the ladies of the Ohio delegation.

And Bob Leffingwell, also arriving at the St. Francis, carefully noncommittal; and Fred Van Ackerman, arriving at the Mark with a flat prediction of victory for Ted Jason; and LeGage Shelby and Rufus Kleinfert, arriving together at the Palace, which caused some startled comment from the press, Rufus silent and uneasy but ’Gage making the same firm prediction. And the same prediction from Patsy Labaiya, arriving in a flurry of lights and cameras at the Fairmont, accompanied by Herbert Jason, Selena Castleberry, and Valuela Randall, Valuela come all the way from Portofino “to help my favorite nephew.” And Cullee Hamilton, smiling quietly and slipping in behind them with Sarah Johnson, almost unnoticed in the Jasons’ characteristic uproar. And Bob and Dolly Munson, equally unobtrusive, managing to elude the press at the St. Francis by coming in a side door. And the Speaker, following seconds after, at the Hilton. And Justice Thomas Buckmaster Davis and his friend from the
Post
—“Let’s slip in this way, dear boy, we don’t want too much publicity, you know, it might detract from Ted.” “You old fraud, Tommy, you want all the publicity you can get and we all know it. Hey, boys! Here’s Justice Davis! Better ask him a few questions!”

And the delegations from Indiana, Michigan, Montana, Hawaii, Alaska, Mississippi, South Carolina, North Carolina, Louisiana, Georgia, tumbling in on one another’s heels at the Palace; and Kansas, Pennsylvania, the Dakotas, New York, and a riotous, exuberant California jamming into the Hilton; and the others scattered all over downtown. And the cable cars beginning to move more and more slowly up and down Powell as the crowds grew in Union Square and in front of the St. Francis; and the taxi drivers beginning to curse, and the buses along Geary beginning to honk impatiently; and at the Cow Palace in Daly City, ten miles south on the Peninsula where the convention would actually be held, the last lights being tested, the last cameras and microphones being checked, the last sound trucks being wheeled into place, the last briefings being held for the cops and the sergeants-at-arms, the last consignments of hot dogs, soda pop, banners, and programs being unloaded for the booths beneath the stands. And the sun bright and sparkling everywhere, and the waters of the Bay competing with the sky to see which could be bluest. And at the Fairmont, almost unnoticed in all the shouting, running, moving, shoving people, a conservatively dressed, quietly pretty young woman with a big “UTAH” button on her coat, getting out of a cab with an excited little blond girl of seven—almost unnoticed but not quite, because a stocky, pleasant-faced man with a big “IOWA” button stepped forward and called, “Mabel! Mabel Anderson!” And the young woman stopped and turned and blushed, and the little girl screamed, “Uncle Lafe!” and rushed into his arms.

“Why, there you are,” Mabel said, and he bent and kissed her lips as though he had done it a million times, while Pidge jumped and squealed and wriggled in his arms.

“Yes,” he said with a gravely gentle smile. “Here I am.”

“I find these Knox men,” Crystal confided to her mother-in-law at the St. Francis as they changed and made ready to depart for the Ohio Ladies’ reception at the Fairmont, “quite something to live with.”

Beth smiled.

“No complaints, I hope?”

“Heavens, no,” Crystal said. “But it’s—intriguing—to watch the wheels go around, you know?”

“Yes,” Beth agreed, briskly getting out of the tweed suit she had traveled in, briskly getting into a light blue dress, neat but matronly, “I think I do know. In what particular respect, though?”

“Oh—I don’t know. The ambition, I guess. And the drive. And the sudden spells of being so sentimental and human, and so—overcome by it all. When Hal came back to the room after his first speech at the state convention six months ago, he started to tell me what a wonderful greeting they’d given him and tears came into his eyes and he had to stop. He really got all choked up.” She smiled, her own eyes suddenly brighter. “So did I, as a matter of fact.”

“They care,” Beth said seriously. “People don’t believe that about the Knoxes, or at least about my Knox, but they do care. Such a hatchet job has been done on them by people like Walter Dobius that the public has an automatic association of ‘Knox—cold-blooded.’ At least some of the public. Thank God there are others.”

“Plenty of others,” Crystal said, starting to struggle into a stylishly cut maternity dress that was as efficient a matching of purpose and pretense as maternity dresses ever are. “Look at the crowd downstairs in the lobby.”

“For heaven’s sake, girl, let me help you with that,” Beth said impatiently. “Haven’t you learned to be waited on, yet? You’re a politician’s daughter; you know what crowds mean.”

“Thanks ... It depends on the crowd. I’d say from the tone of the one downstairs that there are plenty of people here who want Orrin Knox on that ticket. I think they’re going to get him.”

“They’ve wanted him before,” Beth said, her eyes suddenly shadowed by the memories of two lost conventions, the endless speeches, the endless campaigning, the shattered effort, heartbreaking and destructive of all but the toughest. “They didn’t get him. What makes you think they will now?”

“A hunch,” Crystal said, moving to the window and staring down at the swirling crowds far below. Faintly the sound of a band in Union Square came up through the cool, shining air. “And this time, a principle and a cause that maybe are greater than any he’s fought for before. Before, I’ve felt, it was Orrin Knox-the-efficient-leader who was running, and that was a powerful argument. But not enough. Now it’s Orrin Knox the man who symbolizes a specific policy and program, and that’s a little different. Man and issue have finally come together, I think.”

“What does Stanley think?”

At this reference to her father, senior Senator from Connecticut and Majority Whip of the Senate, Crystal looked surprised.

“He’s heading up the campaign, isn’t he?”

“I know,” Beth said, pinning to her blouse a rose taken from one of the bouquets sent to the room by the ladies of Illinois, the ladies of Michigan, the ladies of Pennsylvania, the ladies of Nebraska. “But what does he really think?”

“The Dantas are like the Knoxes,” Crystal said, a little stiffly. “He wouldn’t make the commitment if he didn’t believe in it.”

“Now, now,” Beth said calmly. “Don’t get upset. I know Stanley. I mean about the chances. Is he as confident about it as we’d like to have him?”

“I think he is,” Crystal said slowly. “He’s pretty close-mouthed, you know, even with me, but I think he thinks there’s a very good chance.”

“I hope so,” Beth said soberly. “I do hope so. I don’t know whether Orrin could stand it again if—”

“Oh, of course he could. Others have taken it and survived. He could too.”

I’m glad you have such faith in the Knoxes,” Beth said with a sudden smile. Her daughter-in-law smiled back with perfect candor. It grows.

There was a banging on the door of the adjoining room. Crystal laughed.

“There they are, ready to start the grind. Hold on a minute!” she called cheerfully. “We’ll be right there.…Really, you know,” she said as she started for the door, “I feel like a cow on exhibition.”