VII
There is a belief, widely held, that a drowning man reviews in his mind all the events of his life; time is abolished, and a year happens in a second, as in dreams. With Lanny there was no need of such speed; he had nothing to do. He didn’t wish to go out, and he didn’t consider it decorous to get up and look through the open doorway. He recalled his meetings with this great man of history, over a period of almost eight years; he saw in his mind the different places: the White House, the Hyde Park mansion, “Shangri La” in the Catoctin Mountains of Maryland; more recently Casablanca and Marrakech, Yalta and the cruiser Quincy. He reviewed all the errands upon which he had been sent, a score or more, many of them dangerous; he recalled the reports he had sent in, and what the Boss had said about them, always kind things—he was one of the kindest men Lanny had ever known. He could not bear to hurt the feelings of his friends; that was the basis of his weakness as an executive.
Tears started into the P.A.’s eyes again and again. There was no use trying to stop them, he just had to let them flow. He could not summon any hope, search as he would in the corners of his mind. For a young man, for a strong man, yes; but for this gray ghost, this man who had been driving himself and had been driven by his enemies beyond the limits of endurance, no. He had lost consciousness, and he must be staying unconscious, or surely the doctor would have come out and spoken some word of cheer. No, this was one of those lightning strokes, and it had wiped out the best hope of the world.
Baker whispered, “He may pull through.” Lanny did not try to answer, for it was not fair to destroy another man’s spark of hope. He thought for a moment about this faithful servant, who had carried out so punctiliously every secret order of his employer. He was always on hand, ready for any duty. Many times Lanny had wondered, What life did he have apart from this service? He had never spoken of it; rarely had he spoken of anything but his job. Now he too must see the ruin of everything that had been important in his life.
The Russian painter took her departure, and the two cousins went, presumably, to their rooms. But the three White House employees did not move unless they were called. Lanny stole glances at them; they sat rigid, their eyes closed most of the time. All three were Catholics, and he knew they were praying, perhaps the same prayers. He had done his praying for Roosevelt over a long period; now he confronted the fear that his prayers were vain. This must be death.
A cruel, a terrible thing, a fact of the universe which man confronts with dismay, and for which he makes up whatever explanations and excuses he can find. For a great and good man like this it seemed something monstrous, intolerable. Millions of people, hundreds of millions, were depending upon this man for their happiness, their hope of life. He had labored half a century and more, building a mind, storing it with knowledge, with skills, to fit himself for the task of abolishing strife and establishing justice in the world; then suddenly, in a lightning flash, all that was wiped out of existence. Some little pipe broke in his body, some tiny vein no thicker than a cotton thread; and in that instant his mind ceased to exist, his career was over, his voice was silent, his task abandoned—as he himself had said, “All rubble!”
But was death the end? F.D.R. himself didn’t believe it; at any rate he acted as if he didn’t. He belonged to St. James’ Episcopal Church in Hyde Park and went dutifully on Sundays and said prayers and sang hymns and listened to rituals based upon the certainty that his soul was immortal and that he would meet his friends and loved ones in a hereafter. But did he really believe it? Lanny in his life had met very few persons who acted as if they really believed it. If they did, why the grief, and why the fear of death, the agonized efforts to escape its reaching fingers?
Lanny had tried hard to make up his mind about it. He tried now, sitting here listening to the hoarse breathing of his unconscious friend. Had that consciousness ceased to exist, or had it gone somewhere else, and was Franklin Delano Roosevelt watching from some near or distant place and wishing he could tell his friends not to worry, not to suffer so much about him?
Lanny and his wife were interested in psychic research and had conversed amiably and with curiosity with voices which called themselves spirits of the dead and played the role with verve and conviction. But were they really spirits of the dead? Many people devoutly believed so, and had built a church upon their faith. But in spite of all his good will Lanny could never bring himself to believe that these entities really were what they called themselves. He couldn’t explain them, but thought they were products of subconscious work of his own and other living minds. Somehow we were not solitary beings, as we thought ourselves; somehow we were bubbles floating on an ocean of mind stuff; beautiful bubbles, but they burst, and their substance dropped back into the sea of which they were made.
Would the mind stuff of Franklin D. Roosevelt go to make other minds, as the stuff of his body would go to make other bodies? Were thoughts, impulses, aspirations, prayers, the basic stuff of the universe, more real than calcium, magnesium, iron, and the other ninety-odd elements which modern physics had discovered to be nothing but waves? The physicists called them that, without having the least idea what it was that was waving, and the possibility had dawned upon many of them that the waves might be thoughts. Could it be that Franklin D. Roosevelt was only thoughts, and that God had been thinking him?
VIII
A break in the thoughts of Lanny was provided by the arrival of a heart specialist. Dr. Paullin, summoned by phone from Washington, had driven the eighty miles from Atlanta over back-country roads in a little more than an hour. He strode in with his black medical bag, straight into the bedroom, with no more than a nod to the watchers. Hope picked up for a few minutes; surely this esteemed person must be able to do something—or why had he been called? The breathing sounds continued, and while there was life there would be hope. Let the Catholics say their formal prayers, let Lanny pray with his heart and without words. It meant so much to America, so much to the world. Spare this happy thought of yours, dear God, and let him stay with us just a short while longer! Let him be able to send at least a message to the San Francisco Conference, upon which so much depends, which he has called the keystone of his work! Even if somebody else has to write it for him, and all he has to do is to hear it and whisper “OK”!
But it was all in vain. God had other plans. Thy will, not mine, be done! Commander Bruenn, the naval physician who had had charge of the President on this vacation, was making a report over the phone to the White House, and Lanny heard the dread words, “massive inter-cerebral hemorrhage.” The phone talk was interrupted by a call from the bedroom, and the Commander ran in. The sounds of breathing had stopped, and when he came out he couldn’t speak, but just let his head fall on his chest and shook it slowly from side to side.
Then an extraordinary thing happened. That little black Scottie who was the President’s adoring friend, who lay by his chair or his bed, followed his wheel chair, leaped into the car ahead of him, and had even been a part of his political campaign half a year back—Fala had been lying out of the way under the bed all the time, still as a mouse, and now suddenly he leaped up and let out the most awful howl that Lanny had ever heard in this world. He didn’t stop; it was one howl after another, and he rushed like a mad thing out of the room, across the study, and into the screen door; he crashed it open, and went, still screaming, out into the woods.
That was the end for one silent watcher; he couldn’t stand any more. Sobs convulsed him, and he got up and went out, following the dog. He didn’t see Fala; he walked along a forest path, and when he could walk no more he sat down on the pine needles and wept unashamedly.
IX
Lanny did not go back to that house of mourning. No one needed him there; they all had their duties and would do them, in death as in life. Mrs. Roosevelt was in Washington. With the courage and calm which made her a great woman, she excused herself from the charity function she was attending, put on a black dress, and was flown to the bedside of th
e man she had married forty years before and to whom she had borne four sons and a daughter. There would be public ceremonies, necessary in the death as well as the life of a public man. In all this Lanny would have no part; he was no longer a presidential agent, but a mere complimentary colonel, of whom there were hundreds in the State of Georgia, and thousands in Washington and New York. The Boss had trained him to keep out of the public eye, and if the inquisitive newspapermen should ask, “Who was that officer?” the reply would be, “Just a friend of the family.”
Lanny walked down to the village. He was so distracted, so full of despair, that he didn’t know what he would do or where he would go. For eight years he had been a satellite of F.D.R., revolving about him; now suddenly there was no F.D.R., and Lanny was an asteroid or something, wandering alone through space. He took the night train north, and, lying in a Pullman berth, he contemplated his destiny and tried to imagine what the world would be like without that genial yet commanding presence in the White House. It was truly impossible for him to picture politics, government, or the war without Roosevelt.
In Washington he learned from the papers that most of the world felt just as he did; the world was dazed and lost. The news had gone everywhere in a few seconds, by telephone, telegraph, and radio, and the grief was like nothing that had been in the world before. Reports kept coming in from all over; it was a universal chorus. People walked the streets, sobbing; taxicab drivers pulled up at the curb and sat with tears in their eyes; barbers left their customers half shaven because they could not control the shaking of their hands. Night clubs were closed, restaurants were darkened. People put on mourning as if for a relative; they went about downcast, unsmiling. The radio was one incessant dirge. It was a spontaneous, unrehearsed religious ceremony, in which all took part and by which all were awed. People who hated Roosevelt—had there been people who hated him?—fell silent even among their own groups.
Abraham Lincoln had been mourned like that all over the North; but this was the first time in history that a man had been mourned like that all over the world. For days the stories kept coming in by radio and cable. For the first time in history the British House of Commons adjourned out of respect for an American; Lloyd’s rang the famous Lutine Bell. Over the Kremlin was raised the black-fringed red banner of mourning, hitherto sacred to the Soviet Union’s own greatest. Italy declared three days of national mourning. All the way from Belgrade to Buenos Aires people stopped Americans on the street and poured out their grief in tears. Strangest thing of all, the Japanese radio expressed the people’s grief! Roosevelt had vowed the extermination of the Japanese government, and his planes were showering bombs on their cities; yet, somehow, behind their steel-barred barricades, the people of Japan had managed to find out that they had good things to expect from this greathearted man, and they managed to get their feelings spoken!
X
Eighty-five hours elapsed between the President’s death and his interment in Hyde Park, and all that time the national mourning continued. The body was placed in a hearse in Warm Springs and driven slowly past the Foundation Building, with the crippled children in their wheel chairs watching the marching troops and listening to the muffled drums; the minstrel show they had been rehearsing would never be given. At the station the coffin was placed in the last car of the funeral train, the car brilliantly lighted so that the people could see it; the train went slowly, and the country people came from many miles, lining the tracks; they did not wave, but wept, and many fell on their knees; at all the stations great crowds assembled to pay the last futile tribute to the leader they loved.
In Washington, Lanny was one of that vast throng which lined the streets, the men bareheaded and both men and women in tears. They watched the caisson with its black-draped coffin, drawn by six white horses, proceeding slowly up Pennsylvania Avenue, where six months ago Lanny had stood in the rain to see the newly re-elected President riding in an open car and waving gaily to the shouting throngs. In the White House a private service was held, attended by the family and by Washington’s great. The Episcopal bishop, at Mrs. Roosevelt’s request, quoted the dead man’s words: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” That was what he would have wished the people to remember and put into’ action.
Then the funeral train moved on to Hyde Park on the Hudson, the home where Franklin Roosevelt had been born and had lived his happiest years. It was Sunday morning, and the sun shone bright; violets and apple trees were in bloom. There was a place which Franklin himself had set aside for his grave, a hemlock-bordered space between the mansion and the new library he had built to house the papers and souvenirs of his life. An honor guard of six hundred West Point cadets attended, and a battery of guns behind the garden fired a salute of twenty-one guns. With the band playing Chopin’s funeral march, the caisson rolled slowly into the garden. By the grave stood Mrs. Roosevelt, her daughter, and one of her sons—the others being far away at the wars.
The casket was lowered, and the Episcopal service was read a second time. Again at Mrs. Roosevelt’s request, the rector of the local church read one of the President’s favorite biblical passages, from the First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians: “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, and charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.” Out of such words the Christian religion had been made, and by them the character and career of Franklin D. Roosevelt had been shaped.
12
Gifts of an Enemy
I
The United States of America had a new President. He succeeded automatically, the moment the old President died, and two or three hours later he took the oath of office, administered by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Everybody in the country, indeed everybody in the conscious world, wondered what kind of man he was and what sort of President he would make.
His name was Harry S Truman and he came from a small town in Missouri. He had been brought up on a small farm and, like many other Presidents, he had had to make his own way in the world. In World War I he had risen to be a captain of artillery. Then he had gone into the haberdashery business and failed. He had been made a district judge, and the boss of a very corrupt political machine had picked him as Democratic candidate for United States senator. Elected, he had been made chairman of a committee to investigate frauds in war production, and the success he had made at this job had caused him to be singled out for the vice-presidential nomination. By American tradition such candidates are chosen because they come from a different part of the country from the presidential candidate, and because they haven’t made too many enemies in the political pulling and hauling.
Everybody agreed that Harry Truman was personally honest. He was a kindly and likable man, folksy and unpretentious. He liked to play poker with the boys, and he could play the “Missouri Waltz” on the piano, an unusual cultural attainment. He had had no executive training and possessed little knowledge of international affairs. Everybody agreed that he was now having a dreadful burden dumped onto his shoulders; he was obviously frightened, and people were sorry for him and wanted to help him. In the country’s public life a new “Era of Good Feeling” was promised.
Like most Americans, Lanny Budd had never seen this new man and had to learn about him from newspapers and radio. His voice had a flat, hard tone and his Middlewestern accent suggested crudity; a contrast with the golden voice to which the country had become accustomed. The newspapermen and politicians who knew Harry Truman seemed to be at one in the idea that while he had been elected as a New Dealer, he wasn’t one at heart; he was a mild man, anxious to please everybody and disposed to let things stay as they were. Of course that might be wishful thinking on the part of some; but the impression seemed so widespread that Lanny’s heart sank deeper and deeper with each day’s reading. The war had forced the government into an enormous program of production for use; and now would Lanny have to wi
tness the same spectacle that had tormented his young soul after World War I, seeing these magnificent plants turned over to the service of private greed at a price of ten cents on the dollar or less?
Apparently all Big Business was counting upon that. In California a Republican congressman made a speech before the Chamber of Commerce of his home town. With the body of Franklin Roosevelt not yet underground, this congressman declared that he knew Harry Truman, and that Truman would “go definitely to the right.” This statement was considered to be of interest, not merely to Americans, but also to people abroad; it was cabled to London, and a couple of days later Lanny received a cablegram from his friend Rick. When properly paragraphed and punctuated it turned out to be some verses:
The shepherd is dead, and the sheep
Wander alone in the hills;
The night comes on, the black night,
And the heart with terror fills.
The wolves slink in the shadows,
They who must be fed;
Their breath is hot and panting,
They know that the shepherd is dead.
Oh, sorrow beyond telling!
Oh, sheep that none can save!
Oh, heartbreak of the future!
O shepherd, speak from the grave!
Lanny thought that these verses said something to the American people. There would be no use submitting them to any of the big-circulation magazines, for, one and all, their proprietors hated to pay income taxes and would surely not consent to refer to their two, three, or four million subscribers as sheep. In New York were several small-circulation magazines which called themselves liberal or progressive, and Lanny submitted the verses to them. The effort brought polite rejection slips, and increased the depression in the soul of a former presidential agent. These magazines supported the New Deal on political and economic issues, but when it came to cultural matters, to drama and art, to literature and especially poetry, their editors were victims of intellectual snobbery, some of it age-old and some ultramodern. If the product contained anything in which the ordinary man could find meaning, that automatically stamped it as beneath editorial notice. Praise was reserved for works which were so subtle, obscure, or eccentric that only a chosen few could form any idea what they were about. If you asked the editors, you would find that no two of them could agree what the work in question meant, and it was a toss-up whether the creator of the work thought that he knew, or was just slinging paint or words in a mood of hilarity.