Free Hollywood by Gore Vidal Page B

Across the chamber Caroline sat, very still, between Wilson’s applauding daughters. There were going to be many more arguments at editorial meetings, thought Blaise.
    Wilson’s face was somewhat less sallow after this demonstration than before, and the voice was stronger as he drove in the last nail. “With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the step I am taking …” Tragical for whom? Blaise wondered. The dead, of course. But was Wilson saying that the nation was now embarked upon tragedy as a nation? Could so large a mass of disparate people ever share in anything so high and dreadful and intimate as tragedy? Tragedy was for individuals, or so Blaise had been imperfectly taught. Then he understood. Wilson meant himself: “… tragical character of the step
I am taking
.” This was grandeur, even lunacy. True, Wilson was, for this instant, the personification of a people; but then the instant would pass and other vain men, some seated even now in this chamber, would take his place.
    “I advise that the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial German Government to be in fact nothing less than war against the government and people of the United States.…” Wilson put the blame for war on Germany; then asked for war. Again, the cheering was led by the plainly drunk and weeping Chief Justice. Rebel yells sounded. Something was beginningto tear apart. Was it civilization? Blaise wondered, no enthusiast of that vague concept, but was its cloudy notion not better than men like baying hounds, howling wolves?
    As if he had anticipated what wildness he was provoking about the camp-fire, Wilson moved swiftly to high, holy ground. “We are at the beginning of an age in which it will be insisted that the same standards of conduct and of responsibility for wrong done shall be observed among nations and their governments that are observed among the individual citizens of civilized states.” Frederika, surprisingly, sardonically, murmured in Blaise’s ear: “Does he know Mr. Hearst?”
    Blaise almost laughed; she had at least broken the magic spell that the wizard was spinning amongst his war-drunk savages. “Or Colonel Roosevelt,” Blaise whispered back, to the annoyance of the now elevated Evalyn. Ned was asleep. “… fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberations of its peoples, the German peoples included; for the rights of nations great and small and the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience. The world must be made safe for democracy.” One person began to applaud, loudly.
    The President had already started his next sentence when he stopped, as if only now aware of the significance of what he had said. The applause began to mount, as others joined in. What, Blaise wondered, wearily, is democracy? And how can it or anything else so undefinable ever be assured of safety? Human slavery was something so specific that one could indeed make the world a dangerous place for it to flourish; but democracy? Tammany? The caucus? Money? Had there ever been so many millionaires in this democratic Senate?
    Blaise looked up at the clock. It was now nine-fifteen. The President had been speaking for almost half an hour. Magic had been unleashed in the chamber, and ancestral voices had begun their whisperings, and old battle songs sounded in the rain’s tattoo:
for we’ll rally round the flag, boys, we’ll rally once again, shouting the battle cry of freedom
.
    The warlock now spun his ultimate spell. “It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts.…” Oh yes, thought Blaise. Let us kill for peace! Frederika had broken the spell for him; yet he recognized its potency; saw it work upon the