Senator North

G >> Gertrude Atherton >> Senator North

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"There is not the least danger of your motives being misconstrued, and
the Capitol is swarming with women, all the time. They seem to regard
it as a sort of National Theatre, where the most exciting denouement
may take place any minute. I fancy they have come from all over the
country for the satisfaction of being able to say, for the rest of
their lives, that they were in at the death. The poor Capitol has
become a sort of asylum for wandering lunatics."

Betty laughed. "I feel calmer here than anywhere else, especially now
that Molly has gone over to the Cubans since the publication of that
speech. I suspect it has made a good many other converts. I didn't
think the tide of excitement in the country could rise any higher, but
it appears to have needed that last straw. Have you any hope left?"

"None whatever. The politicians in both parties are rushing the
President off his feet and inflaming the country at the same time.
Sincere sympathizers with Cuba, like Burleigh, are holding their peace
until the President shall have declared himself, but there is very
little patriotism amongst politicians desirous of re-election. If
Spain was a quick-thinking nation and was not stultified by a mulish
obstinacy for which the word 'pride' is a euphemism, or if the
President could hypnotize the country for six months, all would be
well, but I do not look for a miracle. I have done all I can. I have
persuaded my own State to keep quiet, and that has lessened the
pressure a little; and I have persuaded no less than eight of our
bellicose members to say nothing on the floor of the Senate until the
President has sent in his message,--that delay is necessary if we are
to meet war with any sort of preparation. That is all I can do, for I
don't care to speak on the subject again, to bring it up in the Senate
until it no longer can be held down. But I have said a good deal in
the lobby."

"I suspect you have! Do you mind all the talk about your being
unpatriotic, and that sort of thing? I cried for an hour the other day
over an article in a New York paper, headed 'A Traitor,' and saying
the most hideous things about you."

"I didn't read it. And don't spoil your eyes over anything sensational
American newspapers may say of anybody; let them alone and read the
few decent ones. For a public man to worry over such assaults would be
a stupid waste of his mental energy; for if he is in the right he
consoles himself with the reflection that the traitor of to-day is the
patriot of to-morrow. But let politics go to the winds for a little.
Tell me something about yourself. I have started no less than four
times to go to see you--at half-past six in the afternoon--and turned
back."

"I go there and sit almost every afternoon. This excitement has been a
godsend. If the world had been pursuing its even way during the last
two months, I don't know what would have happened to me. What am I to
do when it is over?" she broke out, for they were almost secluded.
"The more I think of the future the more hopeless it seems. If there
is war, I'll go as a nurse--"

"You will do nothing of the sort. Promise me that--instantly. There
will be trained nurses without end, and you would run the risk of
fever for nothing. Promise me."

"But I _must_ do something. I have hours that you cannot imagine.
Ordinarily I keep up very well, for I have character enough to make
the best of life, whatever happens; but one can control one's heart
with one's will just so long and no longer. When the world is quiet
and I am alone at night, if I don't go to sleep at once--it is
terrible! Do you think I should be afraid of death? If I have got to
go through life with this terrible ache in my heart, in my whole body
--for when I cry my very fingers cramp--I'd a thousand times rather go
to Cuba and have done with it."

For a moment he only stared at her. Then he parted his lips as if to
speak, but closed them again so firmly that Betty wondered what he was
holding back. But his eyes, although they had flashed for a moment and
burned still, told her nothing. He did not speak for fully a minute.
Then he said,--

"Death can be met with fortitude by any strong brain, but not a
lifetime of miserable invalidism. If you contracted fever down there,
you might get rid of it in several years and you might not.
Meanwhile," he added, smiling, "you would become yellow and wrinkled.
So promise me at once that you will not go."

"I swear it!" she said with an attempt at gayety. "Not even for you
will I get yellow and wrinkled--and I adore you! Tell me," she went on
rapidly and with little further attempt at self-control; "what shall I
do next? Shall I go abroad? There is no distraction in castles and
cathedrals and crooked streets; they must be enjoyed when one is idle
and tranquil. I'm tired of pictures. I suppose I've seen about twenty
miles of them in my life. As for the old masters they give me
nightmares. There is nothing left but society, and I don't like
foreigners and should find little novelty in England--and many
reminders! The future appalls me. I cannot face it. Am I inconsiderate
to talk like this when you are so worried? Sometimes I feel that I
have no right to be even sensible of my individuality when a whole
nation is convulsed; it seems almost absurd that there are hundreds of
thousands of tragedies within the great one--but there are! There are!
And the war will bring oblivion to only those to whom it brings
death."

She stopped, panting, after the torrent of words. His hand had closed
about her arm, and he was bending close above her. His face had
flushed deeply, and once more he opened his lips as if to speak, but
did not. Betty shook suddenly. Was the word he would not utter "Wait"?
There could be no doubt that a word struggled for utterance, and that
he held it back. If he did not, Betty felt that her love would turn
cold. For a great love may be killed by a sudden blow, and there is
always some one thing that will kill the greatest. But she wished
that his brain would flash its message to hers.

The silence between them became so intense and the strain on her eyes
so intolerable that she dropped her head and fumbled with her muff.
She dared not speak, dared not divert his mind. He was too much the
master of his own fate.

"Don't ever hesitate to speak out through consideration for me, my
dear," he said. "The only relief we both have is to speak our thoughts
occasionally. And you can tell me nothing of yourself that I do not
know already. I never forget that you are tormented. But Time will
help you. The future which looms with a few dull and insupportable
Facts is crowded with small details which consume both time and
thought, and it is full of little unexpected pleasures. War is very
diverting. One's attitude to a war after the first few shocks is as to
a great military drama. If by a miracle ours should be averted, then
go to England, where you will have men at least to talk to. When plans
for the future are futile, live in the present and be careful to make
no mistake. It is the only philosophy for those who are not in the
favour of Circumstance. I am going now. Bend your ear closer. I have
had so little opportunity to be tender with you, and I have thought of
that as much as of anything else."

Betty inclined her head eagerly, and he whispered to her for a moment,
then left her.

For a few moments she did not move. The buoyancy of her nature was
still considerable, and his last words had thrilled her and made her
almost as happy as if he would return in an hour. She rose finally and
walked across the hall, her inclination divided between the Senate
Gallery where she might look at him, and her boudoir where she might
fling herself on her divan and think of him. As she was moving along
slowly, seeing no one, her arm was caught by a bony hand, and a
familiar drawl smote her ear.

"Laws, Miss Madison, have you gone blind all of a sudden? But you look
as if you had two stars in your eyes."

"How do you do, Mrs. Mudd? These are times to make anybody absent-
minded."

"Well, I guess! We're gettin' there and no mistake. Now look quick,
Miss Madison--there's my husband, the one that's just got up off that
bench. He's been talkin' to a constituent."

Betty glanced across the Hall with some interest: she occasionally had
doubted the reality of George Washington Mudd. A tall stout man in a
loose black overcoat, a black slouch hat, and a big cotton umbrella
under his arm, was stalking across the Hall with his head in the air,
as if to sniff at the marble effigies of the great. Betty felt young
again and gave a delighted laugh.

"Why, I didn't know there really was anything like that!" she cried.
"I thought--"

"Well, I guess I'd like to know what you mean," exclaimed an infuriate
voice; and Betty, turning to Mrs. Mudd's dark red face, recovered
herself instantly.

"I mean that your husband belongs to a type that our dramatists have
thought worthy of preservation and of exercising their finest art
upon. I often give writers credit for more creative ability than they
possess, for I always am seeing some one in real life whose entire
type I had supposed had come straight out of their genius. Take
yourself, for instance. If I had not met you outside of a book, I
should have thought you a triumph of imagination."

"Well--thanks," drawled Mrs. Mudd, mollified though doubtful. "I don't
claim that George is handsome, but he's the smartest man in our
district and he'll make the House sit up yet." She giggled and rolled
her eyes. "He was downright jealous because I came home from the
reception and raved over the President," she announced. "Oh, my!"

"Perhaps he's a Populist," suggested Betty.

"Not much he ain't. He's a good Democrat with Silver principles."

"Well, I'm glad you're happy. Good-afternoon."

"I love the greatest man in America and she loves George Washington
Mudd," thought Betty, as she walked down the corridor. "Mortals die,
but love is imperishable. A half-century hence and where will the love
that dwells in every fibre of me now, have gone? Will it be dust with
my dust, or vigorous with eternal youth in some poor girl who never
heard my name?"

And then she went home to her boudoir.

XIII

Betty, who had come justly to the conclusion that she knew something
of politics after a year's application to the science and several
object lessons, made in the following weeks her first acquaintance
with the intricacies which sometimes may involve political motives.
The President was not given time to exhaust diplomacy with Spain,
although in his War Message he was obliged to state that he had done
so. To deal successfully with a proud and mediaeval country required
months, not days, and as Spain had grudgingly but surely yielded all
along the line to the demands of the United States, it is safe to
assume that she would have withdrawn peacefully her forces from Cuba
if her pride could have been saved. Sagasta was working in the
interests of peace; but a bigoted old country, too indolent to read
history, and puzzled at a youthful nation's industry in the cause of
humanity, would move so fast and no faster.

The President was rushed off his feet and his hand was forced. An
honest but delirious country was threatening impeachment and
clamouring for war. Its representatives were hammering on the doors of
the White House and shrieking in Congress. A dishonest press was
inflaming it and injuring it in the eyes of the world by assaulting
the integrity of the Executive and of the leading men in both Houses;
and unscrupulous politicians were extracting every possible party
advantage, until it looked as if the Democratic party, rent asunder by
Mr. Bryan and his doctrines, would be unified once more. The House,
after the President's calm and impersonal message on the _Maine_
report, acted like a mutinous school of bad boys who had not been
taught the first principles of breeding and dignity; the few gentlemen
in it hardly tried to make themselves heard, and even the Speaker was
powerless to quell a couple of hundred tempers all rampant at once.
Every conceivable insult was heaped upon the head of the President as
he delayed his War Message from day to day, hoping against hope, and
gaining what time he could to strengthen the Navy.

It became necessary therefore for the high-class men in the Senate,
particularly the Republicans, to present an unbroken front. Whatever
the conclusions of the President, they must stand by him. It was their
duty as Americans first and Republicans after; for they had elected
him to the high and representative office he filled, they were
responsible for him, he had done nothing to forfeit their confidence,
and everything, by his wise and conservative course, to win their
approval. And it was their duty to their party to uphold him, for
internal dissensions in this great crisis would weaken their forces
and play them into the hands of the Democrats. Therefore, Senator
North and others, who had strenuously and consistently opposed war
from any cause, until it became evident that the President had been
elbowed into the position of a puppet by his people instead of being
permitted to guide them, withdrew their opposition, and when his
Message finally was forced from his hand, let it be known that they
should support it against the powerful faction in the Senate which
demanded the recognition of Cuba as a Republic. The Message meant war,
but a war that no longer could be averted, and there was nothing left
for any high-minded statesman and loyal party man to do but to defend
the President from those who would usurp his authority and tie his
hands, to demonstrate to the world their belief in a statesmanship
which was being attacked at every point by those whom his Message had
disappointed, and to provide against one future embarrassment the
more.

When Betty had trodden the maze this far, she realized the unenviable
position of the conservative faction in the Senate. North's position
was particularly unpleasant. He had stood to the country as the
embodiment of its conservative spirit, the spirit which was opposed
uncompromisingly to this war. Several days before the speech of the
Senator from Vermont exploded the inflamed nervous system of the
country, he had made an address which had been copied in every
State in the Union and been hopefully commented on abroad. In this
speech, which was a passionless, impersonal, and judicial argument
against interference in the domestic affairs of a friendly nation
seeking to put down an insurgent population whose record for butchery
and crime equalled her own, as well as a brilliant forecast of the
evils, foreign and domestic, which must follow such a war, he
demonstrated that if war was declared at this period it would be
unjustifiable because it would be the direct result of the accident to
the _Maine_, which, as the explosion could not be traced to the
Spanish officials, was not a _casus belli_. Prior to that accident no
important or considerable number of the American people had clamoured
for war, only for according belligerent rights to the Cubans, which
measure they were not wise enough to see would lead to war. Therefore,
had the _Maine_ incident not occurred, the President would have been
given the necessary time for successful diplomacy, despite the frantic
efforts of the press and the loud-voiced minority; and it could not be
claimed that the present clamour, dating from the fifteenth of
February, was honestly in behalf of the suffering Cuban. It was for
revenge, and it was an utterly unreasonable demand for revenge, as no
sane man believed that Spain had seized the first opportunity to cut
her throat; and until it could be proved that she had done so, it was
a case for indemnity, not for war. Therefore, if war came at the
present juncture it was because the people of the United States had
made up their minds they wanted a fight, they would have a fight, they
didn't care whether they had an excuse or not.

The speech made a profound impression even in the agitated state of
the public mind, for bitterly as North might be denounced he always
was listened to. The press lashed itself into a fury and wrote head-
lines which would have ridden its editors into prison had the country
possessed libel laws adequate to protect a noble provision of the
Constitution. The temperate men in the country had been with North
from the beginning, but the excited millions excoriated him the more
loudly. He was denounced at public banquets and accused by excited
citizens all over the Union, except in his own State, of every
depravity, from holding an unimaginable number of Spanish bonds to
taking a ferocious pleasure in the sufferings of the reconcentrados.

And in the face of this he must cast his vote for war.

A weaker man would have held stubbornly to his position, made
notorious by his personality, and a less patriotic have chosen the
satisfaction of being consistent to the bitter end and winning some
measure of approval from the unthinking.

But North was a statesman, and although Betty did not see him to speak
to for many weeks after the Message went to Congress, she doubted if
he had hesitated a moment in choosing his course. He was a man who
made a problem of nothing, who thought and acted promptly on all
questions great and small. It was his manifest duty to support his
President, who was also the head of his party, and to do what he could
to win the sympathy of Europe for his country by making its course
appear the right and inevitable one.

North's position was the logical result of the deliberations and
decisions of the year 1787. Hamilton, the greatest creative and
constructive genius of his century, never so signally proved his far-
sighted statesmanship as when he pleaded for an aristocratic republic
with a strong centralized government. As he was capable of anything,
he doubtless foresaw the tyranny of the people into which ill-
considered liberty would degenerate, just as he foresaw the many
strong, wise, and even great men who would be born to rule the country
wisely if given the necessary power. If the educated men of the
country knew that its destinies were wholly in their hands, and that
they alone could achieve the highest honours, there is not one of them
who would not train himself in the science of government. Such men,
ruling a country in which liberty did not mean a heterogeneous
monarchy, would make the lot of the masses far easier than it is
to-day. The fifteen million Irish plebeians with which the country is
cursed would be harmlessly raising pigs in the country. Hamilton, in
one of his letters, speaks of democracy as a poison. Some twenty years
ago an eminent Englishman bottled and labelled the poison in its
infinite variety, as a warning to the extreme liberals in his own
country. We attempted one ideal, and we almost have forgotten what the
ideal was. Hamilton's could not have fared worse, and there is good
reason to believe that educated and thinking men, unhampered by those
who talk bad grammar and think not, would have raised our standards
far higher than they are, even with men like North patiently and
dauntlessly striving to counteract the poison below. At all events,
there would be no question of a President's hand being forced. Nor
would such a class of rulers put a man in the White House whose hand
could be forced.

Although Betty knew North would disregard the sneers of the press and
of ambitious orators who would declaim while cannon thundered, she
also knew that his impassive exterior hid a sense of humiliating
defeat, and that the moment in which he was obliged to utter his aye
for war would be the bitterest of his life. She fancied that he forgot
her in these days, but she was willing to have it so. The intense
breathless excitement of that time, when scarcely a Senator left his
seat from ten in the morning till some late hour of the night, except
to snatch a meal; the psychological effect of the silent excited
crowds in the galleries and corridors of the Capitol and on its lawns
and the immensity of its steps; the solemnity and incalculable
significance of the approaching crisis, and the complete gravity of
the man who possessed her mind, carried her out of herself and merged
her personality for a brief while into the great personality of the
nation.

XIV

It was half-past one o'clock in the morning of the nineteenth of
April. A thousand people, weary and breathless but intensely silent,
were crowded together in the galleries of the Senate. They had been
there all night, some of them since early afternoon, a few since
twelve o'clock. Outside, the corridors were so packed with humanity
that it was a wonder the six acres of building did not sway. For the
first time in hours they were silent and motionless, although they
could hear nothing.

On the floor of the Senate almost every chair was occupied, and every
Senator was singularly erect; no one was lounging, or whispering, or
writing to-night. All faced the Vice-President, alone on his dais,
much as an army faces its general. Every foot of the wide semicircle
between the last curve of chairs and the wall was occupied by members
of the House of Representatives, who stood in a dignified silence with
which they had been little acquainted of late.

The Senate no longer looked like a Club. It recalled the description
of Bryce: "The place seems consecrated to great affairs."

The Secretary was about to call the roll for the vote which would
decide the fate of Cuba and alter for ever the position of the United
States in the family of nations.

Betty had been in the gallery all night and a part of the preceding
day. When the Senate took a recess at half-past six in the evening,
she and Mary Montgomery, while Mrs. Shattuc guarded their seats, had
forced their way down to the restaurant, but had been obliged to
content themselves with a few sandwiches bought at the counter. But
Betty was conscious of neither hunger nor fatigue, although the strain
during the last eight hours had been almost insupportable: the brief
sharp debates, the prosing of bores, interrupted by angry cries of
"Vote! Vote!" the reiterated announcement of the Chairman of the
Committee on Foreign Relations that the conferees could not agree, the
perpetual nagging of two Democrats and one Populist, the long trying
intervals of debate on matters irrelevant to the great question
torturing every mind, during which there was much confusion on the
floor: the Senators talked constantly in groups except when the
Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations brought in his amended
bill;--all this had made up a day trying to the stoutest nerves, and
more than one person had fainted and been carried from the galleries.

The blood throbbed in Betty Madison's head from repressed excitement
and the long strain on her nerves. But the solemnity of the scene
affected her so powerfully that her ego seemed dead, she only was
conscious of looking down upon history. It seemed to her that for the
first time she fully realized the tremendous issues involved in the
calling of that roll of names. The attitude of the American people
which she had deprecated and scorned was dignified by the attitude of
that historical body below her. Even Senator North did not interest
her. The Senate for the time was a unit.

It seemed to her an interminable interval between the last echo of the
rumbling voice of the Clerk who had read the resolution amended by the
report of the conferees, and the first raucous exasperated note of the
Secretary's clerk, after a brief colloquy between Senators. This clerk
calls the roll of the Senate at all times as if he hated every member
of it, and to-night he was nervous.

Betty felt the blood throb in her ears as she counted the sharp
decisive "ayes" and "nos," although Burleigh, whom she had seen during
the recess, had told her there was no doubt of the issue. As the clerk
entered the M's, she came to herself with a shock, and simultaneously
was possessed by a desire to get out of the gallery before Senator
North's time came to say "aye." She had heard the roll called many
times, she knew there were fourteen M's, and that she would have time
to get out of the gallery if she were quick about it. She made so
violent an effort to control the excitement raging within her that her
brain ached as if a wedge had been driven through it. She whispered
hurriedly to Mary Montgomery, who was leaning breathlessly over the
rail and did not hear her, then made her way up to the door as rapidly
as she could; even the steps were set thick with people.

As she was passed out of the gallery by the doorkeeper, and found
herself precipitated upon that pale trembling hollow-eyed crowd wedged
together like atoms in a rock, her knees trembled and her courage
almost failed her. Several caught her by the arms, and asked her how
the vote was going; but she only shrugged her shoulders with the
instinct of self-defence and pushed her way toward a big policeman. He
knew her and put out his hand, thrusting one or two people aside.

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