Advise and Consent (13 page)

“For Christ’s sake,” he whispered heatedly, “what did you say to Paul?”

“I didn’t say anything to the old bastard,” Harley whispered back with equal heat. “He started right in on me the minute I got to him. He said Seab had been talking to him about it, and he agreed with Seab, and he was going to say so. I asked him to wait until next week, and you saw how he obliged.”

Bob Munson shook his head angrily.

“He’s hopeless,” he said. “Thanks anyway, Harley. Don’t give up. There are plenty of others that need attention.”

“I won’t,” the Vice President whispered. “You can count on me, Bob.”

“Is there some sinister plot against the stability of this Republic?” Paul Hendershot was demanding, pacing back and forth behind his desk, as Bob Munson returned to his seat. “Is this some devious design by which we will be betrayed behind our backs by high officials presumably entrusted with our safety?”

At his side Senator Munson noted that the adjoining desk had finally been claimed by its rightful occupant. Seab was sitting with his legs stretched out, his hands folded across his ample stomach among the lodge and Phi Beta Kappa keys, his head forward in a half-drowsing way. But he wasn’t asleep, Senator Munson saw; a little pleased smile was on his lips and he was humming “Dixie” quietly beneath his breath.

“Dum-de-dum-dum-dum-de-dum-de-dum-de-
dum
-
dum
,” he was humming as Bob Munson leaned toward him fiercely.

“Well, I hope you’re satisfied,” he said in a savage whisper.

“Didn’t think of Paul, did you, Bob?” Seab asked softly. “Didn’t expect
him
to blow up, did you, now?”

“I’m not surprised,” Senator Munson said. “I’m just surprised you’re not in it. Since when did you hide behind somebody else to do your dirty work for you? One thing I thought you had, Seab, was the courage of your convictions.”

“So I have, Bob,” Senator Cooley said placidly. “So I have. I’ll be talking in a minute.”

“I hope so,” Senator Munson told him, “because I want to answer.”

“Are there not other patriotic men, better equipped to fill this great office, to whom we could accord confirmation more willingly?” Senator Hendershot demanded, and Senator Cooley rose slowly at his desk.

“Mr.—President,” he said softly, and the room quieted down. “Will the Senator from Indiana yield for just a moment to me?”

“I am glad to yield to the distinguished and able Senator from South Carolina,” Paul Hendershot said promptly.

“Can it be?” Senator Cooley asked softly and slowly. “Can—it—really—be, Senators, that this is the
only
man of all the millions in this great Republic, who is so distinguished and so able and so filled with his country’s interests, that he must be named to this high post? Can it be that there is no—other—man? I find it hard to believe, Senators. I find it
mighty
hard to believe. Of course, now, I may be mistaken. It may be he is the—only—one. It may be there is no other among us who has the ability and the integrity and the patriotism and the concern for America of this man. But doesn’t it seem a little strange to you, Senators, that he should be the—only—one?”

“Mr. President, will the Senator yield?” Lafe Smith asked crisply from his desk off to the side. Senator Cooley looked around slowly and a paternal smile came gently over his face.

“I am always delighted to yield,” he said softly, “to our able and accomplished young colleague who always knows so much about what we all should do.”

“That may be,” Lafe snapped, flushing, “but if it is, it is immaterial. Does the Senator presume to think he knows more than the President does about what is needed for the office of Secretary of State at this critical juncture of our affairs? Does he think he knows better who the President can work with than does the President himself? I learned early when I came here of the omniscience of the distinguished president pro tempore of the Senate, with all his long decades of service, but I did not learn then nor have I learned since that he is infallible on all subjects under God’s blue sky.”

Senator Cooley smiled in his placid way.

“Now there, Senators,” he said in a tone of wistful regret, “you have an example of the passions this man Leffingwell can arouse. Able young Senators, reared in the ways of their fathers, taught to be courteous at their mothers’ knees, turn on their elders and rend them because of their passions over this disturbing man. It’s disgraceful!” he roared suddenly, raising one hand high above his head and bringing it down in a great angry arc to strike his desk with a bone-jarring crack. “It’s disgraceful that this man should upset the Senate so! Let us have done with him, Senators: Let us reject his nomination! Let us say to the President of the United States, give us a patriot! Give us a statesman!
Give us an American!
”

A spattering of applause broke from the galleries and Harley Hudson banged his gavel hastily.

“The galleries will be advised,” he said sternly, “that they are here as guests of the Senate and as such they are not permitted to make demon-strations of any kind. The galleries will please observe the rules of the Senate.”

“Mr. President,” Bob Munson said icily, standing side by side with Seab but looking industriously at the Chair, “will the Senator from Indiana yield to me?”

“I yield,” Paul Hendershot said.

“The Senator from South Carolina,” Bob Munson said bitterly, turning his back on him and facing the Senate, “brings to bear all his famous eloquence and invective on Robert Leffingwell. It is not the first time that he has opposed Robert Leffingwell, and it will not be the last; but I venture to assert that his efforts on this occasion will meet with the same success with which they have met on other occasions. Colorful language and dramatic oratory, Mr. President, are not what the Senate needs on this occasion. This occasion is too serious for that. The Senate needs a sober and careful appraisal of this nominee to determine, in its own time and in its own high wisdom, whether he is fitted to fill the great office of Secretary of State of the United States to which the President has appointed him. The Senate is not in a mood for stunts, Mr. President. The matter is worthy of better than that from us.”

At this the visitors in the galleries who hadn’t applauded the first time broke into a rather hasty riffle of approval of their own, and again the Vice President started to gavel them to silence. Half a dozen Senators were on their feet shouting, “Mr. President!” however, so Harley thought better of it and hastily recognized Brigham Anderson.

For a moment, in one of those mutually appraising lulls that come in a heated debate, the senior Senator from Utah looked slowly around the chamber, aware of Henry Lytle sitting nervously on the edge of his chair nearby, of Archibald Joslin across the aisle looking upset in a dignified sort of way, of Johnny DeWilton, white-topped and stubborn, of George Keating watching blearily, and Nelson Lloyd listening intently, of the scattering of clerks, administrative assistants, and members of the House who had come in to stand along the walls as they so often did during major Senate clashes, of the tourists gawping and the press gallery scribbling furiously above, and the pulsating tension in the room. Then he looked directly at the Vice President and began to speak in a calm and level voice.

“Mr. President,” he said slowly, “it is obvious already what all of us have known would be the case since we first heard of this nomination this morning. It has startled, and in some cases dismayed, the Senate. It has created already intense controversy and even bitterness. It has begun to divide us even before we have had a chance to unite on the only issue that should concern us here: can this man represent the United States in the councils of the world as we in the Senate wish it to be represented? The Senator from South Carolina asks if he is the only man who can do the job. That, I submit, is not the question. He is the only man before us, nominated by the President of the United States, to do the job. It is beside the point who else might do it; he is the only man selected to do it. It is up to us now to determine whether he can or not, on his own merits and in his own right. It is this question to which our energies should, indeed must, be directed now
....
Senators will recall that I have had occasion in the past to be critical of this nominee, indeed on one occasion to oppose and vote against him. It may be that I shall have occasion to do so again before this nomination is disposed of. The point now is that this nomination is not disposed of, that it has only begun to be disposed of; and that as of now, I do not know what I shall do on this nominee. Nor, I submit, does any honest Senator who is not blinded by prejudice or personal spleen know what he will do on this nominee. That is a secret the future holds, and I submit that we would be better advised now to leave it with the future, until this nomination has gone to committee and come out upon the floor in regular order for us to debate and vote upon.”

“Mr. President!” several Senators said insistently as Brigham Anderson sat down, and Harley saw fit to recognize Orrin Knox. Paul Hendershot protested at once.

“Mr. President,” he said in his acerbic way, “I believe I have the floor. I am not aware that the Senator from Illinois has asked me to yield to him, and I am not aware that I have yielded to him. I did not think I would have to instruct the Vice President in the rules of the Senate.”

For once Harley looked really angry, and the Senate thought, with some delight, that for once it might see him provoked into angry retort. And for once, it was not disappointed.

“The Senator from Indiana,” he said coldly, “is not equipped to instruct the Vice President in anything, let alone the rules of the Senate. The Senator from Indiana has the floor and may dispose of it as he pleases.”

“Very well,” Senator Hendershot said tartly, “then I yield to the Senator from Illinois.”

“The Senator from Illinois,” Harley said in the same cold voice, “is recognized by grace of the Senator from Indiana.”

Amid a general titter, Orrin stood stolidly at his desk, absent-mindedly rearranging the papers upon it. When the titter died he looked up and far away, as though he were seeing things the Senate could not see. This trick of his always brought silence, and it did now.

“Mr. President,” he said in his flat Midwestern tones, “I thank the Senator from Indiana for his courtesy, and I commend the Vice President upon his. It is not easy for the Vice President to preside over the Senate when passions are stirred as they are on this nomination. The Vice President at best does not have an easy job, and in my opinion he discharges it in a manner that should bring the commendation rather than the criticism of Senators who are privileged to work with him.”

At this unexpected and startling compliment, uttered against a background of their differences at the convention, Orrin’s shattered presidential hopes, his intermittent bitterness toward Harley since, and all the rest of it, there was an audible murmur which the Senator from Illinois ignored. The Vice President, looking first astounded, then greatly pleased, bowed his head slightly in acknowledgment. Senator Knox went on, in the same rather faraway manner.

“Mr. President,” he said, “what is the issue here? It is not, as the senior Senator from South Carolina says, whether this man is the only man who can do the job; it is, as the senior Senator from Utah says, that he is the only man before us who has been selected to do the job. Like the Senator from Utah, I too am in doubt about this nomination; I too have opposed Mr. Leffingwell in the past, and I too may do so again in this instance. But I do not know at this minute whether I will or not, and I too submit that no Senator of integrity who really has the interests of his country at heart in this time of her deep trouble can know at this minute either. There is much involved here, Mr. President; much that has not yet even begun to be brought out. We have barely scratched the surface of this nomination and all its implications. I too,” he said, his voice rising suddenly, his left arm shooting out before him with a paper still held tightly in his hand, his whole body twisting with the vigor of his utterance, “I too would like to take the easy way out, Mr. President. I too would like to demagogue. I too would like to say, “This man did something to me once, and so I will oppose him forever!’ I too would like to imply that there is ‘some sinister plot against the Republic’ The point is,
I do not know
, and neither does anybody else. It is so much poppycock to say anybody knows. It is nonsense. It is demagoguery. I will have none of it. I will give him a fair hearing and I will make up my mind after the facts are in. Who among you”—and he turned slowly full around, searching from face to face while the Senate sat in absolute silence—“who among you is so petty, so uncharitable, and yes, so unpatriotic, that he will do otherwise in this hour of his country’s need?”

After which, having proved that Seab was among his equals when it came to rafter-raising, he sat slowly down and returned to the impassive perusal of his papers while the galleries and Harley went once more through their little routine of impulsive applause and cautionary gavel banging.

“All right,” Paul Hendershot said bitterly. “All right. Then I will ask the distinguished Senator from Minnesota a question, I will ask him this, if he will give me an answer: is it not true that the President of the United States called in the Senator from Minnesota this morning and asked him to rush this nomination through, perhaps by next Monday afternoon, if he could possibly do it? Is it not true that this plan was concurred in by the Senator from Minnesota and the distinguished Majority Leader? I want to know the answer to that, Mr. President, and then I yield the floor.”

Tom August got up slowly in his protesting, mole-like way, and looked around the chamber as if seeking solace and support. Apparently he thought he saw neither, for he gripped his desk so hard the press gallery could see his knuckles turn white, and when he spoke it was in his usual soft voice but with an unusual edge of angry resentment.

“Mr. President,” he said softly, “I do not like the tone of the senior Senator from Indiana, nor did I, earlier, like the tone of the senior Senator from South Carolina. These are not tones normally heard in the Senate, Mr. President, and it seems to me there has been a strange loss of courtesy here this afternoon. It is not becoming to the Senate, and I as one member protest it. The Senator from Indiana asks if the President of the United States did not ask me to, as he puts it, ‘rush this nomination through,’ when we talked this morning. I am not privileged to divulge my conversations with the President of the United States, and even if I were, I doubt if I should divulge them to the Senator, that is the senior Senator, from Indiana. However, I say this only: the President of the United States very naturally wishes this nomination expedited as much as possible. I assured him that insofar as it lay in my power I would co-operate to this end, subject always to the wishes of the Senate. This, I venture to state, is nothing sinister; it is the natural request of a President and it is the natural rejoinder of a member of his own party who happens to be chairman of the great Committee on Foreign Relations.” And with an asperity very rare to him, he added as he sat down, “I would suggest to the Senator from Indiana and the Senator from South Carolina that if they think they can make anything of that, they do so.”