Capable of Honor (62 page)

“Are there further seconds or rebuttals?” the Speaker asked. There was a pause for a moment, then a stirring back along the ramp. One of the assistant sergeants-at-arms hurried forward to murmur in his ear. He turned to the convention.

“The distinguished Senator from Michigan wishes to speak in rebuttal after a fifteen-minute recess,” he said. “Without objection the convention will stand in recess until”—he glanced at his watch—“9:17 P.M. Good Lord,” he added to the sergeant-at-arms, “is it that late already? Time goes.”

“The convention, as you have just seen, has entered a recess period for fifteen minutes,” Frankly Unctuous the Anchor Man said smoothly in his booth above, while in the distance delegates and audience could be seen stretching, eating, gossiping, going out to the toilets, milling about. “In this time, it perhaps would be helpful if we reviewed briefly what has occurred here this afternoon and in the opening hours of what promises to be a long and possibly hectic evening. We have asked Walter Dobius, America’s leading philosopher-statesman, whose column ‘The Way It Is’ is read by many millions of you, to assist us. Walter”—with a smile of brotherhood, a glance of shared conviction—“you will amend, revise, correct, dispute, or interject, as you deem necessary.”

“I doubt that I shall deem it necessary,” Walter said with a calm, judicious air. “It does promise, as you say, to be a hectic evening.”

“Yes,” Frankly Unctuous said, and his expression became suitably solemn. “What we have seen so far represents, I think, an extraordinary departure from the pattern of most previous American political conventions. We have seen a United States Senator hustled bodily from the platform as he sought to oppose the candidacy of a Secretary of State. We have seen a growing spirit of ugliness and hate. It is an old truism, I suppose, Walter, that violence begets violence, and certainly we have had proof of that here at the Cow Palace today. Because supporters of Secretary Knox—apparently without his personal knowledge, Walter, I am sure we are all agreed on that—”

Walter shrugged. “He said so in his statement,” he observed in a tone that destroyed with indifference.

“Yes, he did,” Frankly agreed. “But because his supporters were responsible for a riot this morning which has now claimed the lives of the two young men you have just heard described by former Governor Roger P. Croy of Oregon, the supporters of Governor Edward M. Jason of California have apparently decided to meet fire with fire. They seem extraordinarily well organized, don’t they, Walter, and quite determined to counter every misstatement of fact from the other side with some notable rejoinder of their own. Their presence lends a certain spice to the proceedings in the Cow Palace tonight which might otherwise be lacking. And it further demonstrates a new and fascinating alliance in American politics. Perhaps you could describe this alliance for us, Walter.”

“I should be happy to,” Walter Dobius said. “Its leaders, of course, are the foreign policy organization known as the Committee on Making Further Offers for a Russian Truce, otherwise known as COMFORT; the leading Negro organization. Defenders of Equality for You, known as DEFY; and the Konference on Efforts to Encourage Patriotism, known as KEEP.”

“Right there, Walter,” Frankly Unctuous said, “how does it come about that three such disparate organizations—COMFORT, with its constant search for new, peaceful accommodations with the Communist world; DEFY, which has heretofore been principally concerned with furthering the Negro drive for better things; and KEEP, with its somewhat adamant opposition to foreign wars and agreements of any kind—should be able to see eye to eye on the candidacy of Governor Jason? Doesn’t it seem like a rather strange misstating, so to speak—a case of political bedfellows being even stranger than is sometimes the case at a convention?”

“Perhaps even more than Governor Jason,” Walter said, “I think the President and Secretary Knox are the keys to it. This is a great movement of protest we are seeing here, one of the authentic rebellions of thought of our history. It is inevitable, it seems to me, that COMFORT, for instance, should oppose the Administration’s utter repudiation and betrayal of all forms of international cooperation, as exemplified by the prolonged and fruitless struggles in Gorotoland and Panama. It is inevitable that DEFY, having achieved so many of the political and educational goals of the Negro, should now be seeking a speedy and complete equality in the economic field—and that its leaders should realize that in alliance with other groups it will be ten times more powerful and successful than it is now. Obviously opposition to the Administration’s ill-advised and foredoomed foreign policy forms the easiest and surest basis for such an alliance. And finally, it is not surprising to find KEEP, which has always opposed foreign adventures of any kind as being Communist-inspired plots to drag us down, willing to join, perhaps somewhat uneasily, in an alliance with groups it has always feared and despised.

“The main issue for all of these is opposition to the Hudson-Knox policies, whose defeat they consider more important and more vital than anything else before the country. It is from this feeling, I think, that Governor Jason draws his principal support and will, in my opinion, conquer this convention.”

“Certainly he will, I think we can all agree,” Frankly Unctuous said smoothly, “if further violence is forthcoming from the Knox camp. Why don’t you just stand by here, Walter, while the Majority Leader renews his appeal, and perhaps from time to time we may be able to offer comments or interpretations that may assist our viewers in understanding his remarks and their effect upon this convention—which now stands,” he concluded gravely, “at the crucial moment for many things and many people.”

“Not the least of them,” Walter said with a sudden grimness, “the President of the United States.”

“Why, yes,” Frankly agreed, obviously a little startled by his guest’s abrupt change of subject and mood. “The President, too.”

“Mr. Speaker,” Bob Munson said slowly, and this time no chant from the galleries greeted him, only an expectant silence everywhere, “I hesitate to do what I am about to do, yet I think it is necessary in order to put the remarks of the distinguished National Committeeman from Oregon in proper perspective.

“He has talked to you about two young men, unfortunate victims of a riot in Union Square this morning. I am going to talk to you about them, too. Unlike Governor Croy, I am going to deal in facts, not fictions. Because of the time—no more than half an hour—in which I have had to find these facts, they are not entirely complete. But they will give you the picture.

“The names of these two youths were William Everett Hollister II and Booker T. Saunders. Both were twenty-two.

“William Hollister was the product of a wealthy broken home who, the record shows, was ousted successively from six private schools before he finally was able to matriculate at the public high school in Burlingame, California. There he had a record of indifferent scholarship and repeated clashes with authority. At the age of seventeen he entered the University of California at Berkeley, and promptly became associated with all the radical-extremist elements on the campus. He had a record of thirteen arrests for disturbing the peace, seven for malicious destruction of University property, three for illegal breaking and entry. Although considered to have a mind of some brilliance, he did just enough academic work to remain in school. He was a perennial troublemaker, a constant leader of so-called ‘student rebellions,’ a constant protester against anything, apparently, as long as it was something the authorities—any authorities—were for.

“He was, in short, an academic tramp with a flair for publicity—of which,” Bob Munson said dryly, pausing to take a sip of water before completing his sentence—“certain local newspapers thoughtfully saw to it that he received a great deal.”

“The Majority Leader,” Frankly Unctuous broke in to say with a deprecating smile to Walter, “seems to disapprove of youthful independence. But I must confess I can’t see how it has any bearing upon the fact that the youth is dead. That is all that really matters, wouldn’t you say?”

“I am sure it is all that interests the delegates, the country, and the world,” Walter agreed.

“Booker T. Saunders,” Senator Munson continued, “was born into the poorest economic conditions and never made much attempt to get out of them. He barely managed to get through grammar school where he, too, had a record of constant disciplinary infractions. He dropped out of high school at the end of his freshman year. After that he drifted through a succession of menial jobs, presently joining a street gang and embarking upon a criminal career which in the past four years has made him a familiar figure to police. He was arrested four times for possession of narcotics, three times for attempted rape, six times for breaking and entering, five times for chronic alcoholism, once for suspected murder. On various technicalities, most of these were dismissed though he did serve six months in one rape case.

“These were the two noble, dedicated youths whom the distinguished National Committeeman of Oregon called upon to buttress his case. I submit to you that their deaths, while regrettable as all violent deaths are regrettable, were perhaps no more than their lives and characters had made inescapable. Certainly I do not think any fair-minded persons can regard them as martyrs to anything but the general chaos and waste of our present society with its general loosening of every restraint required for stability.

“Now let me turn for a brief concluding moment in this distasteful but, I think, necessary recital, to the riot in Union Square which brought about their deaths.”

He paused and then went on in a steady, hammering tone.

“Despite the immediate assumption and assertion by television commentators—made instantaneously without any checking at all, and dutifully echoed by certain powerful segments of the press as soon as they could rush it into print—there is no slightest evidence from any source whatsoever that this riot was started by backers of the Secretary of State. (There was a wild burst of applause from Knox delegates. He went steadily ahead over it.)

“Not one single, solitary witness of any credibility whatever has come forward to claim, with proof, that it was Knox-inspired, Knox-authorized, or Knox-started. The so-called ‘Knox riot’ is the pure and simple creation of a handful of commentators and a group of powerful journalists, all of them deeply hostile to the Secretary of State and deeply committed to the candidacy of the Governor of California. It is they who have charged the Secretary of State with fostering violence—in order to cover up the violence covering from the other side. That is the truth of it, if anywhere in this convention—or anywhere in this country—or anywhere in this world—men still honor the truth!”

Abruptly the hall was once again in an uproar with shouts of approval, applause, and a wave of boos, some directed at him, some directed at the press sections and the television booths Olympian above.

“Well, well,” Frankly Unctuous said directly into the camera with a humorous, candid smile and a mock pretense of wiping his forehead. “I guess we’re to be the villains of the piece once again, eh, Walter? I guess the poor old television and the poor old press must once again serve as whipping boys for those who have no genuine arguments to support them. The really interesting thing, of course,” he added, resuming his judicious gravity, “is that all of this that has happened here in the past few hours seems to place both the Majority Leader and the Speaker squarely on the side of Secretary Knox in this contest, making of this a convention about which one might say, at the least, that it is influenced, if not completely controlled.”

“Even more interesting than that,” Walter Dobius said with a spiteful distaste he made no attempt to conceal, “is the fact as you noted a few moments’ ago, that these young men are dead. However much he may attack their characters when they can no longer defend themselves, and no matter how much he attacks you or us in the press,
the boys are dead.
They were
murdered,
and no amount of personal smearing of them or of the press can change that fact.”

“And while no one may have come forward to prove that the Knox forces did, in fact, start the riot,” Frankly agreed smoothly, “By the same token, no one has come forward—nor, one suspects, can come forward—to prove that they did not. So there it stands. Our own reporter on the spot is of the impression that they did. I would suggest that his judgment is as good as any—including that of the Senate Majority Leader,” he said, permitting for a second a genuine contempt to break through his careful suavity, “who at the time was some distance from the scene, in a suite at the Hilton Hotel plotting strategy to assist the Secretary of State.…But,” he added swiftly, all smooth, profound, plum-pudding analysis again, “let us see what he has to say now.”

“I submit to you, my friends of this great convention,” Bob Munson said, “that we cannot in all conscience base our votes upon the crucial issue of foreign policy, or the crucial issue of a nominee for Vice President, upon emotional and unfactual appeals such as those made by the National Committeeman from Oregon. No amount of emotionalism can conceal that the issue is a very simple one: we are for our President or we are against him. We approve what he has done and is doing in Gorotoland and Panama, or we do not. We support him, or we fail him—and we all go down together. It is not a time to quibble or be emotional. It is a time to endorse the only course consistent with the honor and integrity of the United States and this great party.

“I urge you to reject the minority amendment, adopt the committee recommendation that the convention write its own foreign policy plank, and then write into the platform the courageous and forthright endorsement of our great President that the hour and the crisis demand.”

“Mr. Chairman!” someone shouted from the California delegation as he left the lectern. “Mr. Speaker, California demands a roll-call vote on the minority amendment.”

“I don’t think there will be much disagreement with that,” the Speaker nodded, and for a moment the convention was laughing together in some relief and reasonable friendliness again.