Free Hollywood by Gore Vidal

war, to no avail. Fortunately, the managing editor of the
Tribune
was in Blaise’s seat; and gave it up. Frederika was next to him, looking pale, youthful, subdued. Next to her was Blaise’s fellow press-lord Ned McLean and his wife Evalyn, bedecked with diamonds, each unluckier than the other if the press—
their
press—was to be believed.
    “Blaise, old boy!” Ned held out a hand, across Frederika. Blaise shook it. He didn’t like being called “old boy” or indeed anything by Ned, an intolerable young fool, who then proceeded to offer him a silver flask.
    “This could be very dry, you know.” Ned’s eyes popped comically. He was like a movie comedian, thought Blaise, declining the flask from which Evalyn took a long swig. “A ridiculous time to declare war,” she said, drying her lips with a fret-work gloved hand on whose fingers diamonds glittered. “Eight-thirty. Imagine! Just when we’re thinking about going in to dinner. Isn’t that so, Frederika?”
    “But we never really
think
about it. We just go in. Don’t we, Blaise?”
    Blaise nodded, eyes on the opposite gallery, where, somehow, Caroline had got herself placed between two of the President’s daughters. Mrs. Wilson was now taking her seat, with gracious smiles and waves to friends on the floor beneath.
    “There’s the widow Galt.” Like so many Washington ladies, Evalyn enjoyed depicting the Wilsons as an amorous couple, given to never-ending venery. Blaise had been with Evalyn at the theater when the President had first appeared in public with the widow Galt; she had worn what looked to be every orchid from the White House observatory. “What,” Evalyn had asked, “do you think they’ll do
after
the theater?”
    Frederika had answered: “She will eat her orchids and go to bed.”
    Below them, the elegant Connecticut senator, Brandegee, bowed low to the press-lords. Brandegee had tried to interest Blaise in coming to the Senate from Rhode Island, where the seat was relatively inexpensive, certainly cheaper than the cost of maintaining Blaise’s inherited house at Newport. “You’ll like the Senate. Despite some bounders, it’s the best club in the country.” But Blaise had no interest in public office. Power was something else, of course, and a newspaper publisher had more power than most, or power’s illusion, which was, perhaps, all that there ever is. The image of Wilson’s collapsed face in the mirror was already inscribed on memory’s plate as one of those startling never-to-be-erased images. If
that
was true power, Blaise was willing to forgo it. Wilson’s face had revealed not so much anguish as pure terror.
    From the chamber below, Burden waved to them. He was standing with a group of Democratic senators at the back. “Has anyone seen the speech?” Ned McLean assumed what he took to be the appropriate keen expression required of the publisher of the Washington
Post
on so awesome an occasion.
    “No,” said Blaise, who had tried his best—cost no object, as Hearst would say—to get a copy from the White House through a friend of the President’s stenographer, Charles L. Gwen. But, apparently, the President had done his own typing on the night of March 31 and into the early morning of Sunday, April 1—on April Fool’s Day. Blaise was still unable to comprehend this occasion, this war.
    Although Wilson had then met with the Cabinet, he chose not to show them his speech. He did say that he was still undecided as to whether he should ask for a straight declaration of war or simply acknowledge that as a state of war already existed, Congress must now give him the means to fight it. Technicalities to one side, the Cabinet proved to be unanimously for war. Just below Blaise, the pacifist secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels, looking war-like, was taking his seat with the rest of the Cabinet, and the Supreme Court. The Vice President was now in his throne beside that of the Speaker of the House. Over their heads a